


The Heartless King

by cactuscowgirl



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anti-Hero, Assassins & Hitmen, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood and Violence, Boss/Employee Relationship, Child Neglect, Depression, Drinking, Drug Use, F/M, Female Anti-Hero, Femme Fatale, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Kidnapping, Light BDSM, Love/Hate, Male-Female Friendship, Medication, Murder, On Hiatus, Organized Crime, Original Character(s), Romantic Friendship, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 53,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23807524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactuscowgirl/pseuds/cactuscowgirl
Summary: Twenty-five year old bartender Cassandra is mere minutes away from committing suicide when she's mistakenly abducted by low-level members of the Caine Syndicate, the most powerful organized crime group in the larger metropolitan area. Cassandra will do anything it takes to avoid whatever the Caine Syndicate has in store for her, but her world is flipped upside down when she meets Jack Caine Warren, their notorious leader.Jack Caine Warren has everything he could ever want. Well, almost everything. All the money and power in his control hadn't been enough to convince his last three hired guns to turn down payments from Daumier (once) or Zhao (twice) to turn their guns on Jack. Now, Jack is down a hired gun, and up one unconscious bartender. The moment he sets eyes on Cassandra, he figures the perfect solution for dealing with the bartender is the same solution for finding a hired gun, so he gives her a choice: remain a prisoner, or swear loyalty to the Caine Syndicate and work as his weapon.As Cass adjusts to her new life in the criminal underworld, she swiftly learns the rules to the dangerous, deadly game played at the top of the food chain, where not everything is as black and white as it appears.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 16
Kudos: 21





	1. The Last Day

Today is the last day of my life.

  
You see, I’m going to off myself when I get home.

  
I’m not doing it on a whim, either. My suicide has been a long time coming. It’s almost impressive that I’ve put it off for so long, but all the unhelpful choruses of “It gets better!” tricked me into waiting. I made the promise that I would wait ten years, just to see if it really does get better.

  
It doesn’t. So, here I am, wiping down a sticky countertop as drunk men not-so-subtly watch my ass as I’m bent over, cleaning and thinking about death.

  
At some point in my life, the pervy leering would have annoyed me, but by this point I have nothing to give. No anger, no annoyance, _nothing_. Just the relief of knowing that I won’t have to do this shit again. _Ever_ again.

  
It’s not that my life is bad or anything, I’m just tired of living. It’s gotten…boring. Repetitive. I haven’t felt genuine emotions in a long time—more than ten years, maybe my whole life. For reasons outside of my control, I don’t remember much before I was eight or nine, and since then, I’ve been _shut down_. I’ve been living on my own for a decade, and the fact that every day feels the same, regardless of how different the day is from the one before, leaves me feeling washed up. Drained. Weary. And after ten years, I’ve decided I’ve done my due diligence and any further postponement will be meaningless. I decided that a month ago, actually, and started making my plans.

  
I know that _how_ people kill themselves is supposed to have some sort of meaning, but I’ve decided on slitting my wrists. My apartment is way too low for a hanging, and there’s no way I’m going out in a drug overdose. I don’t own a gun, and I figured it would be silly to spend money to buy one just so I could use it once. So I settled on slitting my wrists. Cheap, convenient, and could be contained to a bathtub so my apartment managers wouldn’t have too much to clean up. I’ve moved everything from my apartment, most of which was donated to secondhand stores, and my apartment lease ends tomorrow. Today is also my last day of work—exactly two weeks since I filed my fourteen-day notice. All I have now are the clothes on my back and the cash in my purse.

  
Katie, the owner of the bar, sidles up to me with big, puppy dog eyes.

  
“Cass,” she says pensively, “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to convince you to stay? I can give you a raise if you keep it secret from Omar.”

  
Omar is the other night-shift bartender. The one I trade weekdays with, and work with on weekends.

  
I give Katie a sheepish grin before shaking my head, “Katie, you’re an amazing boss and anyone would be lucky to work under you, but today’s my last day.”

  
Katie’s lips press into a sad smile before she nods once and gets back to work, grabbing a couple bottles of beer and heading out to the tables.

  
When we close up, Katie helps me put all the chairs on the tables and sweep, making small talk that’s going out of my ears as quickly as it goes in. Katie lives in an apartment above the bar, so after we finish cleaning, she walks me to the door. Her eyes are sparkling with tears, and I feel a pang of guilt for my inability to feel any sadness about leaving this place, or Katie, when it’s clear she’s fond of me.

  
“Cass!” Katie cries, flinging her arms around my neck—a gesture that I return, wrapping my arms around the woman’s shaking shoulders.

  
“I won’t forget this place for as long as I live,” I swear to her, ignoring the double meaning that she _definitely_ would not approve of.

  
“I hope your next job makes you so happy that you’ll never think of leaving it!” Katie announces, and I roll my eyes as I step out give one final farewell to Katie before I watch her lock the glass door separating us, then I turn and walk to the bus stop.

  
Katie really is amazing, and anyone really would be lucky to get a job with her. I’d met her at twenty-two when I walked into the bar and asked if she was hiring. She wasn’t, but she let me pick up shifts and she trained me to wait tables until one of the bartenders left, and she trained me to make drinks. I’d been relying on odd jobs for the prior seven years, fully cognizant of the rarity of being hired on-the-spot, with no training or experience. She’d probably saved my life…for a while. Katie also watches her employees catch the bus, making sure we’re both safe after closing. I really appreciate that about her, because she might be one of the first people to really give a shit about what happens to me when she’s not liable for whatever occurs to me.

  
Katie is also a reminder that this world isn’t for me. She’s exuberant and honest. She’s open and generous and kind. Unlike me, Katie was made for this world.

  
The bus arrives at 2:07AM, same as always. When I get on, the same two people who are always on the bus this late are the only ones on the bus. They both get off before my stop, and Gus, the bus driver, knows I’m usually the last stop on his route. When we pull up to my apartment complex, I give one final farewell to Gus before I step into the quiet night and Gus drives away.

  
I don’t even realize anything is out of the ordinary when I cross the street and step onto the sidewalk, which is extremely stupid because there’s never a car parked on the street at night. Street parking is prohibited, and you’d think I’d notice the _only_ car parked against the sidewalk, but I’m closer than I’ve ever been to my goal and I’m completely blindsided when a hand clamps over my mouth and a sharp pain briefly shoots through my neck. I whirl around and manage to knock my elbow into the face of the guy, but his hand doesn’t come away from my mouth and my body is feeling less responsive than I'm used to. _This asshole drugged me?_

My vision is looking a little fuzzy around the edges, and I hear a muttered, “Bitch!” before my entire body gives out, and I collapse into the chest of the guy whose hand is around my mouth. My vision is almost black as I hear a second voice, but I can’t make out any words because i'm sliding into a deep, dark, nothingness.


	2. The Death of Cassandra Nichols

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra Nichols awakens after being drugged and abducted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: SUICIDE ATTEMPT.  
> CONTENT WARNING: RAZOR BLADES

My vision is still fuzzy when I open my eyes again. Even if I had forgotten that I’d just been kidnapped, the view of a crystal chandelier on the ceiling is enough to snap me into reality. Quick inventory: headache, dry throat, sore muscles. I tear the silky emerald sheets from my body and am relieved to see that my panties are still on, although I’m wearing some kind of thin, deep purple nightgown that barely hits mid-thigh.

Someone drugged me, kidnapped me, and changed me into…this.

  
I manage to roll off the bed and onto shaky legs. I lean most of my weight against the dark, sleek, wooden furniture until I can reach the window. My stomach roils and I feel so faint that I lean against the cool glass of the window, praying that the chill might help remind me to slow my breathing.

  
Anyone who lives in this city knows this view. Far below my window, I can see the outline of _l’hotel dauphin_ , the second highest building in the hotel district. That means that I am inside The Acropolis. High in The Acropolis. Close to the top, even. The hotel itself is legitimate, but everyone who knows anything in this city knows that this building belongs to Jack Caine Warren, the head of a crime syndicate referred to on the streets as _The Pantheon._

  
There’s a water bottle on the nightstand, but I don’t touch it. It’s probably laced with opioids or something to make me docile. I wish I didn’t know things like that.

  
I look around and take in the room that is undoubtedly bigger than my entire apartment. The bed itself is gigantic, with soft, silky, emerald green sheets and pillow cases. There are no blankets, which is bizarre, but everything else looks exactly like a luxury suite ought to. Or, at least, how I imagine they ought to, since I would never, ever be able to afford a place like this. All the furniture in the room is dark wood, and I’m certain it’s all solid wood. Atop the polished surfaces are golden, metal sculptures that I imagine are supposed to be _artistic_. 

  
The rug beneath the bed is soft and white, with gold filigrees that remind me of the photographs I’ve seen of the palace in Versailles. Golden and white and beautiful and _definitely too rich for my blood._

  
I stumble to the first of three doors in the room, still leaning against any surface that can support my weight. The door opens to a closet that contains two plush, dark green robes, each of which has a peacock feather embroidered on the lapel. The rest of the closet is huge, but entirely empty, so I stumble across the room to another door, which has an overly decorative, gilded doorknob lever that refuses to budge. The third door opens to a bathroom that also might be bigger than my entire apartment. The shower is completely separate from the _in-ground_ bath, which is something I didn’t even know was an option before this exact moment.

  
After I finish using the toilet (heated seat? bidet? Is this what rich people spend their money on?), I examine myself in the wall-to-wall mirror. As I suspected, there’s a red dot on my neck where some asshole plunged a needle in, undoubtedly without medical training. There are bruises near the top of my arms, which I suspect is from when my unconscious body was dragged from my apartment to wherever to here. Remembering the moment just before I woke up sends a shiver through my body as I begin to work through my memories for anything that can explain why I’ve been kidnapped by The Pantheon. 

  
I’ve never even been involved with anyone who was involved with him. I’ve never even been involved with anyone. The closest I’d ever been to someone was probably Mrs. Martinez, and she’d died two years ago.

  
So if they didn’t want me for me, what do they want me for? It’s either random, or it’s because of someone from my Pre-Cass-Past, as I call the period of my life that I’ve forcibly exorcised from my memories.

  
Examining the thin, silky nightgown covering my body reassures me that whatever the reason is that the syndicate wants me, I don’t want to be around to find out. I begin pulling drawers and searching for something—anything—that can help me right now.

  
It feels like a message from the universe when I spot something in the second drawer I rifle through. I walk over to the door and close it, pressing the button above the handle that locks the door. My shaking legs haven’t recovered, so I slide down onto the ground and crawl toward the stupidly extravagant in-ground tub, which could almost pass for a swimming pool. It’s in the shape of a rectangle, and I know it was made to mimic ancient public baths. So cheesy.

I twist the knobs until the water is cascading as warm as I can handle, and then I crawl back over to the counter and prop myself on my knees so I can grab the plastic shaving razor from the drawer. I pry the plastic apart until I can separate the frame from the four, paper-thin blades. Several minutes and tiny nicks in my hands later, I bring the blades with me to the bath, carefully sliding into the hot water without bothering to remove the nightgown that whoever had changed my unconscious body into. Creep. When the water is only a few inches from the top, I turn off the faucet and turn my attention to the blades.

  
“Well,” I say to myself, not eager to waste time without knowing who was watching me, or how long they’d be gone for, “It’s been real, if nothing else.”

  
Despite some residual bitterness regarding the absolute unfairness of life, I don’t hesitate to drag one blade down my left wrist, pulling a hiss through my lips as a stinging pain crawls up my arm. The sudden flow of crimson down my arm and the bloom of red in the hot water sends a spike of nausea through my stomach. I quickly move to the other arm, but it’s harder to maneuver my left hand fingers now that the wrist is split open. After getting the best grasp I can, I rely more on the weight of my right arm to drag my wrist across the blade, exhaling in relief when it’s finally done. The sharp pain lasted only seconds before it fades into an insistent throbbing, and the blood pouring down my arm feels like little insects walking across my skin before it drips down into the pink bathwater. 

  
_I promised when I became Cassandra that I would never be a victim._

  
_I keep my promises._

  
I lay my head back on the edge of the tub and let my arms slip into the water. The heat helps my blood leave my body faster, so now all I can hope is that I bleed out quickly before they come to check on me. A chill begins to move through my body, starting at my fingertips and working its way down, down, down. My hands are cold, even in the hot water, and my vision is starting to get blurry again. This time, I welcome the darkness as it pulls me under. Even my soreness and headache are barely noticeable as the numb takes over and my eyes slide closed.

  
I’m floating, and nothing hurts.


	3. Is There a Doctor in the House?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack Caine Warren's problems are increasing as the woman his incompetent underlings abducted attempts to end her own life, leaving him with unforeseen hospital bills, at the very least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Medical Treatment, stitches

Two things have been invaluable in my climb to the highest rank of The Parthenon: hard work and patience. Without one, my success would never have been possible, so I always take great care to exercise both whenever I can. This is what I tried to remind myself when the stupidest fucking man I’ve ever employed—apparently—informed me that he had abducted some civilian off the street.

  
 _Cassandra Emilia Nichols._ Twenty-five year old bartender. No known connection with the underbelly of the city. No history in the city until eight years ago. All records indicate that this bartender is one hundred percent innocent. Therefore, I congratulate myself on the fact that Ramo, Ms. Nichols’s inept abductor, is still alive—a demonstration of my immense patience and self-control. Self-control that flies out the window when Ramo’s Partner-in-Incompetence, Tav, calls me to tell me that Cassandra Nichols is bleeding to death in the bathroom of the Hera Suite.  
I’m on the elevator the moment the call disconnects, and when the elevator doors open to reveal the decadent Hera Suite, it takes fewer than four seconds for me to reach the bathroom.

  
The sight that greets me chills my blood, which is unusual because it isn’t nearly the worst scene I’ve walked into. Whatever blood was in Ms. Nichols’s body before she went into that tub is almost entirely still in that tub, because the bath is very, very red, and Ms. Nichols’s is as pale as a corpse on the exquisite Italian tile.

  
Tav’s large hands encircle both of Ms. Nichols’s wrists, and I can tell he’s squeezing to staunch the bleeding as best he can. From what I can tell, either the woman’s blood is all gone, or Tav’s handmade tourniquets are working pretty well. Now I’m in a dilemma. See, I want to kill Tav for letting this happen in the first place, but he’s also the one preventing this poor woman’s death by exsanguination. Not to mention that he’d called Dr. Mainlove before he’d called me. Usually I’d have someone killed for going to someone else before me, but medical emergencies deserve exceptions, and I’m also a little impressed with Tav that he risked the consequences to do it anyway. He seems smart, which confuses me because I can’t figure out why anyone with Tav’s intellect would go along with one of Ramo’s hairbrained schemes.

  
Now that my stomach is sufficiently unsettled by the gory bathroom, I turn my attention directly to Ms. Nichols, who could not possibly look more dead at this very moment. Even her lips are white. Her wet hair is spilled out in dark waves around her, and if I couldn’t see the bloody bathtub, I might have assumed that she’d been a drowning victim. The silk slip on her body is stuck to her skin because of the water and I can see more than one rib poking out above her emaciated stomach. Whatever Ms. Nichols had been doing before Ramo took her, she hadn’t been eating well.

  
Tav is silent as I watch over the two of them until Dr. Mainlove arrives, holding her bag of medical equipment as she begins barking orders at us on how to position Ms. Nichols so she can stitch her arms and start a fluid IV that includes blood and at least two other bags of something.

Dr. Mainlove is an absolute sociopath, but she’s probably the most talented sociopath in the medical field willing to work exclusively on the black market, so I’ve learned not to question her. She’s probably one of the only people who could complete a hit on me, if she were so inclined. Fortunately for me, on top of being a sociopath, Dr. Mainlove is a businesswoman, and part of her business relies on her reputation as someone who does no harm to the people who pay her. Not many people willing to trust her to put them under without her stellar reputation that they’ll wake up.

  
After the needles are secured in Ms. Nichols’s arm, Dr. Mainlove barks orders at Tav to help her move Ms. Nichols back to the bed. When her body is settled on the mattress, I tell Dr. Mainlove to change Ms. Nichols into fresh clothes and then Tav and I descend to the thirteenth floor, where I keep my office and the offices of all executives who aren’t necessary on the ground floor. 

  
I hold the door open for Tav to step through, then I close the door and walk to the other side of my desk, pulling out my revolver and setting it on the table, facing Tav.

  
“I had thought when I took two fingers from Ramo that this mess was behind us. Ramo paid for his stupid idea to kidnap this civilian, and all that had to happen was you explain to her that it was a mistake, offer her the money for her trouble, and then send her wherever her heart wants to go. Instead, I walk in to a literal bloodbath. Explain.”  
Tav doesn’t flinch over my threats, which kind of irritates me, but also kind of impresses me, so I ignore that and wait for him to say anything that can explain whatever it that’s going on.

  
“I never anticipated that she would try to commit suicide. I accept full responsibility for what’s happened, boss.”  
I like that Tav calls me “boss” instead of “sir,” but this detail also annoys me right now, so I push it aside and try to focus on what’s important.

  
“You had no idea that she would attempt suicide.” I state bluntly, and Tav nods. “So you’re telling me, on your life, that you and Ramo didn’t do anything to put that woman over the edge?”

  
Tav’s head tilts to the side in curiosity. “Boss, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt a woman. I’ve spent more time with that woman than anyone else, and everything that happened is that Ramo and I picked her up—” _kidnapped her_ “—and I brought her to the basement. Then I got a call from you telling me to bring her to the Hera Suite, so I dropped her off in the bed and went back to my post. I checked on her an hour later and found her in the tub. You can ask her, boss, we didn’t do anything to her.”

  
_Except the kidnapping._

  
I put this woman in one of the finest suites in the entire hotel, but I’m supposed to believe that the minute she woke up, she decided that today was the day to end it all? Either I’ve been burdened with the weakest kidnapping victim I’ve ever come across, or something seriously scared her into choosing death over figuring out the circumstances leading up to her waking up in a $7,000 hotel room. Then again, she wouldn’t be the first person to choose suicide over meeting with me, and I’m sure she won’t be the last.

  
I decide to take Tav’s suggestion to heart, and I return to the Hera Suite after I’ve dismissed him. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, so this time I’m going to personally ensure Cassandra Nichols doesn’t get another opportunity to drive up my bathroom cleaning bills.

  
Dr. Mainlove is sitting in a chair, facing her unconscious patient as she flips through the pages of a magazine. When I step in, she closes her magazine and I see the cover, _Motor Trend_ , before she sets it aside and stands. I assume this is a gesture of respect demanded from other people in my position, but I personally think the gesture is pretty worthless coming from someone like Dr. Mainlove, who has no attachments and no loyalties.

  
“What’s the prognosis, doc?” I gesture to Ms. Nichols, who looks just as dead as she did before, but now with more devices and lines hooked up to her, and her new slip is a dark, autumnal orange. I’d be blown away if Dr. Mainlove thinks there’s any chance of this woman surviving, which sounds to be the right assessment because Dr. Mainlove purses her lips. 

  
“Not good, but I’ll do everything I can.”

  
That last part is something I’m sure Dr. Mainlove picked up on the advice of others, or from some medical drama, because Dr. Mainlove is not a reassuring person. If anything, I’d wager it’s to limit how likely one of her employers would be to blame her for someone dying in her care. There’s no need for her to say it. I know she’ll do everything she can, because that’s her fucking job, and it’s what I pay her for.

  
I call in Luke, my driver and Tav’s more-established brother, and give him directions to watch Ms. Nichols until she regains consciousness, which Dr. Mainlove tells me won’t happen until at least tomorrow. With directions to Luke to contact me as soon as Ms. Nichols wakes up, I return to my office to dig up everything I can about Cassandra Nichols so I can start working on a solution to this quickly worsening problem.


	4. A Change of Pace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass wakes up after her suicide attempt and meets Jack for the first time.

When I wake up to that same stupid chandelier, on that same stupid bed, I realize that Hell is real, and my punishment for whatever I did to end up here will be repeating my suicide over and over for eternity. Or, at least, that’s before I realize I’m not alone. To my left is a blond woman in her late thirties. She’s wearing a navy v-neck sweater and black slacks that might actually be medical scrubs. Her legs are crossed and she sits in a chair that definitely wasn’t in this room last time I woke up. I realize that her pants actually are medical scrubs when I recognize the stethoscope hanging from her neck. Her blue eyes rapidly shift to mine and she smiles a smile that doesn’t come anywhere near her frigid gaze.

She pulls the stethoscope from her neck and begins checking my heartbeat and breathing. “Good, you’re awake.”

  
The woman’s icy eyes move from mine to my right, where I now realize there’s a man. This man is tall and has more muscles in his right arm than I’ve got in my entire body. His hair is only a bit lighter than his brown eyes, and his smile extends through his eyes when he notices I’m awake. He looks back to Ms. Stethoscope and his smile vanishes in an instant before he abruptly stands and moves to the door.

  
“I’ll let the boss know,” he says, not looking at either me or Ms. Stethoscope before walking out through the door that was definitely locked last time I was in here. I notice that he doesn’t close the door all the way, and I wonder if it’s because he thinks I might attack the doctor, or if he thinks she might attack me…?

  
“You must be a fast healer,” Ms. Stethoscope states, examining the machines that I just now realize are attached to me. “You lost quite a bit of blood, but your heart is already pumping stronger now.”

  
I don’t answer her, and a blank look sweeps across her face before her eyes snap back to mine and she begins speaking again, “I have terrible bedside manner, I’ve been told. My name is Dr. Julia Mainlove. Do you feel any pain anywhere? I’ve given you a mild sedative and pain killer, but I couldn’t give you the recommended doses until you recovered fluids.”

  
I shake my head slowly as I try to process whatever it is she’s trying to communicate.

  
She holds a straw to my lips and I sip, and I’m relieved that all I taste is water. I’m so thirsty that it doesn’t take me long to finish the whole thing. Ms. Stethoscope sets the cup down somewhere and turns back to me, “Still, since your heartbeat is stronger now, I’ll be giving you more painkillers. Your wrists will be very sore otherwise. I will only increase the sedative if Mr. Caine requests it.”

  
_Speak of the devil…_

  
Two men burst into the room. The first, I vaguely notice, is the same man who was in here before. Almost all of my attention is focused on the man in the doorway, and all the breath leaves my body when I recognize the face of the most notorious crime lord in the entire state. I recognize him from photographs published in local gossip columns, but none of those photos compare to the real deal. When my eyes meet his steely gray eyes, the “stronger heartbeat” that Dr. Mainlove had just been praising decides to take a vacation. Uncertainty flutters in the pit of my stomach as I stare at the man incapable of mercy and I want to pull my eyes away like my brain is desperately begging me to, but his gaze is like a magnetic pull.

  
I have no idea how much time has passed since I started staring at Jack Caine Warren when Dr. Mainlove’s voice cuts through the room. “She’s stable, I’m going to get lunch.”

  
Jack Caine Warren’s eyes don’t leave mine as he orders, “Luke, go get your brother, you’re off work.”

  
His voice is deep and cold, and my insides liquefy as I start to wonder what Jack Caine Warren is going to do to me when Dr. Mainlove and Luke leave the room. The sensation of fear prickles my stomach, but I refuse to let him see it. I hear, but don’t see, the door close behind that brown haired man that Jack Caine Warren had called “Luke.”

  
Finally, whatever creepy manipulation Jack Caine Warren had employed to keep me from looking away finally wore off, and I finally got a chance to examine him. Whatever air I’ve recovered in my lungs is stolen again as I’m reminded from a warning from my mother.

  
_Don’t trust beauty, baby. After all, Lucifer was God’s most beautiful angel._

  
That’s what Jack Caine Warren looks like. A beautiful angel. His golden hair is styled without a single strand out of place, although I can’t even really tell that he’s applied product, except for the unnerving perfection of the end result, and his predatory gray eyes are framed with thick, dark lashes that look almost solemn against his pronounced jaw and cheekbones. I’d almost believe that he is an angel, if I wasn’t so familiar with his reputation.

  
After what must be minutes of tense silence, Jack finally speaks directly to me.

  
“Aren’t you curious?”

  
 _Yes_.

  
But I don’t answer. Whatever I’m here for, I’m not going to let him play his sick mind games first.

  
His expression twists into a look of disappointment when he realizes I have no intention of responding to him.

  
He straightens his posture, and looks away briefly before returning his attention to me. “Ms. Nichols, my name is Jack, I’m the owner of this hotel.”

  
I roll my eyes, and a look of confusion flits across his face for the briefest of moments before disappearing under an affable smile.

  
“Well, if you know who I am, the easier this is to sort out.” He sighs and sits casually on the end of the bed, still twisted around and carrying a conversation with me. This isn’t what I expected from the most feared man in the city, but maybe it’s one of his long cons, where he’ll try to get me to trust him so he can find out my biggest weaknesses so his torture will be even more efficient. Honestly? I could respect it.

  
“Before I explain to you how you ended up here—” I don’t interrupt with a comment about knowing how cars work, and I praise myself for holding my tongue when all I want to know is what the _fuck_ I’m doing here and when I’m going to be able to leave, “—I have a couple questions for you. You’re free to remain silent if you wish, but I’ll warn you now that lives are on the lines, and your silence will not be conducive to preserving those lives.”

  
My stomach clenches, and I worry that I might throw up, or at least I worry about it until I remember that I haven’t eaten for probably at least a couple of days now. My eyes drift to my left, where an IV stand is set up. I assume the clear bag at the top is whatever has enough calories to keep me going, and I’m momentarily glad that I can’t throw up on sheets that cost more than my monthly income.

  
Jack’s eyes follow mine as I turn back to him and nod my understanding.

  
“What do you remember about the man who took you?”

  
I watch him for several more seconds before I push hoarse sounds through my throat, trying a few times before my vocal chords start to work again.

  
“Nothing.”

  
Jack stares at me silently.

  
“Nothing?”

  
“Nothing.” I repeat, and my voice is already getting better. Still scratchy and hoarse, but noticeably smoother by the syllable.

  
“Did anyone hurt you?”

  
_Big question._

  
“No.” I respond, and my voice is neutral in a way that conveys honesty, but for some reason Jack clearly doesn’t believe me.

  
“No?” He repeats the word slowly, as though I don’t know the meaning of the word.

  
“No. A needle was jabbed in my neck by some psychopath, and then I woke up in here.” I keep my annoyance out of my voice, but I’m starting to get irritated by this guy’s distrust of my answers. _I’m not the kidnapping kingpin here, bucko._

  
“Then why on Earth did you turn my Italian tiles into a bloody crime scene?” Jack has a polite smile on his face, and I begrudgingly notice that even his teeth are perfect. What an asshole.

  
I roll my eyes again, and this time my words slip through my lips before I can stop them. “Suicide isn’t a crime, Jack.”Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I’m vaguely aware that using sarcasm on a guaranteed murderer while locked alone in a room with them is a “bad” idea, but on the other hand, what’s he gonna do? Kill me? _Slowly, if you keep up this bravado, Cass._

  
“Well, the eighty thousand dollars I paid the corrupt doctor to save your life is a crime, so technically the bath was turned into the scene of a crime as a result of your actions.”

  
_Eighty thousand dollars?_

  
Oh, I know what this is. It’s when a loan shark creates circumstances that force a loan in order to force someone into slavery to pay back the debts they never actually agreed to.

  
“Listen, Mr. Warren—”

  
“Jack,” he interrupts.

  
“Jack,” I correct, “I’m sorry that you spent so much money, but I don’t know you and I didn’t ask for your help. I’m just a girl trying to live her last day in peace, and I don’t have any way to pay you back. To be honest, I don’t think I owe you anything.”

  
“You don’t owe me anything.” Jack stands and faces me. “But what do you mean by ‘your last day’?”

  
I sigh, and wonder if honesty will get this guy off my back faster than evasion. Worth a shot.

  
“I mean that this is the last day of my life. Or, it was supposed to be, before I got abducted by The Acropolis, apparently.”

  
Jack’s head tilts to the side in curiosity, and then he begins to look over me in in a way that makes me feel exposed. I hope he doesn’t notice the shiver that runs over my skin as he looks me over.

  
“Funny story about that abduction, actually,” he gives me a sheepish grin and I can’t help but raise an eyebrow. “It was a mistake.”

  
I don’t even understand what he means. It was a mistake to abduct? Or abduct me? Knowing the rumors about the number of people missing after getting in debt with Jack, I have a feeling it’s the latter.

  
“Another funny story—I was going to have you delivered back to your apartment complex when you woke up, but was told that you’d just moved out. Not a lick of furniture.”

  
_Lick? Who talks like that?_

  
“Is there a question in there?” I ask when I notice he’s been quietly watching me, anticipating a response. A response to what? He didn’t even say anything.

  
Jack ignores my comment and continues on, “And then I found out where you’d been working, but I heard from one of the employees—” he’d spoken to people at the bar? Is Katie okay? “—that your last day was the very night Ramo and Tav took you.”

  
_Took. What a euphemism._

  
“Wow,” I sarcastically applaud the man, ignoring the question in my mind as to whether he’d cut my hands off off while he slowly tortures me to death for my insolence. “Your investigative team must have worked twenty-four seven for that info. Your deductive skills are truly beyond comprehension. Remind me again, though, what exactly is the point you’re trying to make here?”

  
“You were planning on ending your life before you got here.”

  
He doesn’t phrase it as a question, so I don’t answer. That works fine for both of us, it seems, because we’re both clearly aware that it’s the truth.

  
“Why?” He demands, as if it’s any of his business.

  
Well, I guess I did just cost him eighty thousand dollars, which seems expensive even for this country.

  
There are a million reasons things that led to my decision to die, but I suppose one is at the forefront. “Nothing better to do.”

  
“And when your wrists have healed and you’ve recovered enough to leave?”

  
This question feels like a gut punch, because that night had been at least a month in the making. I’d orchestrated things perfectly. Well, maybe not so perfectly considering the kidnapping, but the plan was solid. Now what would I do? He lets me out and I just walk into the street or something? Go get a job so I can find another apartment so I can plan it all out again? Just say “fuck it” and off myself however, without any consideration to the people who will have to clean up whatever mess I make of myself.

  
“I don’t know.” I respond, and it’s the truth. I know that I’m going to try again, I just haven’t really thought of how, since I’ve been awake for probably twenty minutes since I was abducted.

  
“This kidnapping has gone from ‘accidental’ to ‘intentional.’” Jack announces. “You will not be permitted to leave, nor will you be left unattended, until your mental health is resolved.”

  
My jaw drops. “You came in here to tell me it was an accident, and now you’re telling me I’m your prisoner?”

  
Jack looks pensive for a second before his smile returns to his face, giving him a particularly angelic look for someone whose deeds have definitely assured him a spot in Hell. “Think of it more as a…medical hold.”

  
“This is illegal. You can’t keep me here,” my voice is higher, and even I can hear the tinge of panic.

  
Jack laughs, then looks at me as though I’m stupid when he realizes that I’m serious. “Ms. Nichols, surely you know my reputation. I’m infamous around this town for my talents in making problems…disappear. Surely you didn’t think that I was above a little false imprisonment?”

  
He doesn’t mention the rest again—that I left my apartment, that I quit my job, that I have no friends and no family to notice my disappearance. Just like I’d wanted. 

  
Jack must notice the despair filling up all the empty space in my mind, because he puts his hand up and says, “I’m not going to lock you in some cell. Really, you’re acting like I’m some sort of serial killer, but I really am doing this for your own good.”

  
“How paternalistic,” I bitterly mutter below my breath, but loud enough that I know he can hear me. It doesn’t matter, he ignores me again.

  
“As much fun as I’m sure we’d have with Dr. Mainlove in this suite during your recovery, I’m willing to offer you another out. You were willing to die today, and I’m in need of someone with a somewhat…tenuous relationship with mortality.”

“What the hell are the words coming out of your mouth?” I shake my head, willing my sedative-laced mind to figure out what it is that he’s trying to say.

“I’m trying to offer you a job,” he explains.

"You're doing a pretty terrible job at it." Again, he ignores me.

“I need someone willing to take lives, and you seemed pretty ready to take at least one life. What do you say?”

  
I’m waiting for my brain to translate his words into something that makes sense, but nothing happens and only the sedatives prevent me from throwing my arms in the air in frustration. “You kidnapped me ‘by accident,’ then obstructed my suicide, now you’re holding me prisoner and you want me to be some kind of _hitman_? Why would I possibly agree to this?”

Jack’s full lips curve into a crooked smile. “Do you have something better to do?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SAME AS LAST CHAPTER, BUT FROM JACK'S PERSPECTIVE since I haven't decided which I prefer.

An important—no, _critical_ —part of business is _negotiation_. One of the most important part of negotiations is knowing which party holds the leverage—the _power_ —over the others. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the party with the power—even when that power was scrounged from the darkest pieces of my mind, paired with my willingness to do whatever needs to be done, morality be damned. Even when I lacked the financial advantage, I had the leverage. Even when I bartered matters of life and death with people whose power exceeded anything I could have imagined at that time, I’d held leverage that had made me invincible for the duration of our _negotiations_. 

  
When engaging in negotiations with an unknown, the most valuable resource for brokering leverage is _knowledge_ , so preparation is essential. I had certainly done my work, but not a thing I had uncovered about the bartender while she was sedated screamed “dire straits.” By the time Luke called to tell me she was conscious, I was certain Ramo or Tav had done something to push her over the edge, and I needed to know which one so I could be sure it wouldn’t happen again.

  
Rather than dire straits, the bartender seemed to be extraordinarily average. She’d received her GED at eighteen, and she has never had any substantial assets or debts. I’d uncovered no criminal record, and her employment history—while erratic—is almost entirely legal. Her file tells me that she has no business here. Fucking Ramo couldn’t even be bothered to check her file before deciding to abduct a woman off the street? Or maybe he did check her file, and didn’t care. Either way, I already know I’m going to deny his request to join The Pantheon. Both Ramo and Tav are trying to prove their capabilities to me, and Ramo’s “ability“to give some poor woman PTSD only because of her blood is not convincing me that he’s a good fit.

  
I’d read everything I was able to find on Cassandra Nichols, dedicated to resolving this matter as swiftly as possible so it would not distract me from my work, and when I’d finally received the call from Luke telling me that she was awake, I’d rushed to the Hera Suite. Luke left Cassandra Nichols alone with Dr. Mainlove, so I wasted no time rushing through the doorway, prepared to explain away everything that had happened—putting The Acropolis in the best possible, least liable light, of course—when I felt the power shift away from me the moment I met her spellbinding hazel eyes. An unfamiliar tension began to move through my stomach as I became trapped in the haunting gaze of the most beautiful ghost I’d ever laid eyes on—although she was also the only ghost I’d ever laid eyes on. 

  
Despite her close resemblance to a corpse, Cassandra Nichols looked better than she had days earlier. Her skin was still much too pale, but her lips had regained their color and she was looking more like Snow White than a zombie. In the light, and while she’s dry, I can see that her hair is the color of chestnuts, not as dark as I’d originally thought when Tav had pulled her out of the bath.

  
Dr. Mainlove had said something and then left, so I instructed Luke to end his shift and to retrieve his brother, who would have to take over watching Cassandra Nichols and Dr. Mainlove when I leave.

  
I don’t know what I expect from Cassandra Nichols, but I didn’t expect her to just sit there, asking no questions. But that’s exactly what she did. No fire, no passion, not even worry seemed to cross her features.

  
_What a fascinating specimen._

  
I decode to give her some encouragement by prompting her, “Aren’t you curious?”

  
Her expression remains guarded and I don’t even see any noticeable reaction, which is now giving me some caution for a wholly different reason. See, usually when you abduct someone in this business, the only people who don’t start by either demanding answers or begging for mercy are people who are tough, but not impossible, to crack. 

  
Another possibility enters my mind. It would be unusual, but not impossible, for someone who has lived in this city for years to not know about me, but Cassandra Nichols has no criminal record, and no reason to know who I am or what it is that I do. I try again, differently this time. “Ms. Nichols, my name is Jack, I’m the owner of this hotel.”

  
When she rolls her eyes, I realize that she _did_ know who I am, and she must be feeling either very confident or very stupid or both. But she has answers I want, and I have nothing to leverage in return. I’ve never felt less prepared for any communication than I feel right now, staring at the woman whose survival was a downright miracle, who looks almost _irritated_ to be lying on sheets that would have cost her an entire month’s salary at her last job.

  
I push down my own annoyance and smile at her before I sit down on the edge of the bed. “Well, if you know who I am, the easier this is to sort out. Before I explain to you how you ended up here, I have a couple questions for you.” From the stone cold silence coming from her end of the room, I assume she’s not going to be very forthcoming, but that’s okay because I’m not above applying pressure. I add, “You’re free to remain silent if you wish, but I’ll warn you now that lives are on the line, and your silence will not be conducive to preserving those lives.”

  
I’m growing more impressed with every moment that Cassandra Nichols doesn’t show the slightest interest in any of the things I’m saying. I briefly consider making a show of it, telling her how many have died by my hands, and then how many have died by my orders, just to see those hazel eyes widen to the size of saucers before her frail body would start to shake with fear. Then I briefly consider where that thought came from at all, and ignore it altogether.  
Cassandra Nichols nods and I can hear victory singing in my blood at getting a response out of her. If I was in top shape, I would probably be more concerned that the leverage has shifted so heavily in her favor that I’m overjoyed just to get a soft nod in my direction, but fortunately for my ego, I’m plenty distracted by whatever is in her mind, almost visible in the black pools of her pupils, but I can’t figure out what’s on her mind. I’ve never felt frustrated because I’ve always had the option to torture information I want out of a person in possession of that information. But Cassandra Nichols was fragile. She’d just survived a suicide attempt, and despite all her bravado, something had led her to the edge of life and I’m not eager to see her there again.

  
“What do you remember about the man who took you?”

  
“Nothing.” Her voice is so rough with disuse that a pang of sympathetic pain lances under my ribs.  
I’m not sure whether to believe her, so I just repeat her own response, and she repeats—

  
“Nothing.”

  
“Did anyone hurt you?”

  
Annoyance flashes briefly across her face before her neutral expression returns. “No.”

  
As soon as the annoyance disappeared from her face, I knew I would be happy to carve Ramo into pieces to find out what had crossed her mind in that half-second before she responded. Her response was smooth enough that I don’t suspect that it’s a lie, but her face and eyes are speaking a language I’m desperate to understand while her words are infuriatingly unhelpful, although the answers are the answers I prefer.

  
“No?” My voice is laced with doubt, and irritation crosses her features once more.

  
“No.” Her voice has become much smoother, but there’s a hard edge that tells me that I’m not going to get much from her voluntarily. Still, I’m glad when she decides to move beyond one word answers when she continues, “A needle was jabbed in my neck by some psychopath, and then I woke up in here.”

  
“Then why on Earth did you turn my Italian tiles into a bloody crime scene?” I smile at her, but she’s completely burrowed under my skin, and I don’t want it to show. Each minute alone with her, I can feel my confidence slipping. I can feel my certainty of my next move slipping away as this ‘extraordinarily average’ bartender pulls my expectations from under my feet.

  
Then she rolls her eyes at me again, and I have to look away briefly so she doesn’t see that my mouth has fallen open because she has no instinct for self-preservation. “Suicide isn’t a crime, Jack.”

  
I have to remind myself that I gave her my first name, but the knowledge that she already knows who I am informs me that her choice to use my first name is a continuation of her _lack of self-preservation_ , so I remind myself to be patient, else Dr. Mainlove won’t be the one responsible for throttling Cassandra Nichols to death.

  
Still, my own bravado is swiftly disintegrating under Cassandra Nichols’s apathetic gaze.

  
“Well, the eighty thousand dollars I paid the corrupt doctor to save your life is a crime, so technically the bath was turned into the scene of a crime as a result of your actions.”

  
Her impassive face, which I’d thought was the result of her hardening her heart during my interrogation, grows noticeably colder. I don’t think I ever had any leverage in this conversation, and yet somehow every action taken by this woman makes me feel more powerless than the last. I’ve never felt so discomfited in any interaction with a stranger, which was only made worse with the knowledge that Cassandra Nichols is sedated five ways to Sunday, has the muscle mass of an earthworm, and is bedridden and connected to no fewer than four medical devices. And still, she’s stealing my power from me, and I can’t figure out how or why. I need to get out of here.

  
“Listen, Mr. Warren—”

  
Despite getting irritated less than a minute earlier about her use of my first name, her use of my last name is even more uncomfortable, so I correct her, “Jack.”

  
She turns her eyes to me, and I fight not to lose myself with thoughts about what’s going on in her mind while she continues to speak, “Jack. I’m sorry that you spent so much money—” _I’m not_ “—but I don’t know you and I didn’t ask for your help. I’m just a girl trying to live her last day in peace, and I don’t have any way to pay you back. To be honest, I don’t think I owe you anything.”

  
Ah, I see what’s happened now. She thinks I’m trying to scam her. This is another red flag for me to jot down. Cassandra Nichols clearly has some notions about underground money-lending schemes that aren’t too far from the mark, but it indicates to me that she doesn’t have close ties with anyone in my world, or she’d know that those of us at the top—myself, Daumier, Zhao, O’Malley, and Lake—don’t have any need to pull low-level scams on civilians. We have enough debtors knocking on our doors. A fireplace poker of guilt sears through my stomach at another reminder that Cassandra Nichols was never meant to be here.

  
“You don’t owe me anything,” I reassure her, though she doesn’t appear reassured in the slightest. “But what do you mean by ‘your last day’?”

  
Cassandra Nichols lets out a heavy sigh and looks away before responding, “I mean that this is the last day of my life. Or, it was supposed to be, before I got abducted by The Acropolis, apparently.”

  
I wonder briefly if she would like it better or worse to know she wasn’t actually abducted by The Acropolis, just by a couple of idiots-in-training. This woman’s a mystery to me, so it’s worth a shot.

  
“Funny story about that abduction, actually,” I give her an apologetic grin, “It was a mistake.”

  
Cassandra Nichols’s face is completely neutral, but I can see the slightest glimpse of conflict in her thoughts, so I continue.

  
“Another funny story—” _not funny, actually_. “I was going to have you delivered back to your apartment complex when you woke up, but I was told that you’d just moved out. Not a lick of furniture.”

  
When I’d first come across this information, I couldn’t believe it. It would have to be beyond dumb luck for Ramo to have just _happened_ to have kidnapped a woman with no friends, no family, no apartment, and no job. The probability of it happening on its own was infinitesimally low, and yet here she lies before me, silent and uncaring.

  
“Is there a question in there?”

  
My desire to throttle Cassandra Nichols has dissipated faster than it started, so I ignore her smart responses in favor of completing my goal. The problem is that I’m no longer clear on what the goal was. Something about answers? But her eyes are throwing me off, there’s something strange about them—strange about her, and I’m not comfortable with whatever that strangeness is doing to me.

  
“And then I found out where you’d been working, but I heard from one of the employees that your last day was the night Ramo and Tav took you.” I’d briefly stopped by the bar to see whether it had any underground connections I wasn’t aware of—you can never be too cautious—and the bartender, a hulking man with delicate pouring hands named Omar, had apologized for the wait, mentioning that his coworker who usually helped him out had recently quit. When I’d asked him when, he’d told me that it was the very same night Ramo took her.

  
Well, “took” is probably the wrong verb, but I’m beyond semantics.

  
Cassandra Nichols’s voice is dripping with sarcasm when she opens her berry-pink lips again. Her face is so soft, her eyes are wide and give her an air of innocence that disappears the moment her razor-sharp words slip from her tongue, “Wow. Your investigative team must have worked twenty-four seven for that info. Your deductive skills are truly beyond comprehension.”

  
By this point, I’m wondering if she’s tying to bait me into finishing the job, but I continue to ignore her.  
“You were planning on ending your life before you got here.”

  
A long silence stretches before us as she stares at me, but doesn’t offer any response.

  
“Why?” I demand. Another silence begins, but I can tell that she’s debating responding, so I give her silence until she can decide what to do.

  
“Nothing better to do.”

  
“And when your wrists have healed and you’ve recovered enough to leave?”

  
Cassandra Nichols is thinking again, but this time I can almost hear her thoughts as her mind shifts between various ways she can end her life when she leaves the hotel.

  
“I don’t know.” She finally responds.

  
This won’t do.

  
“This kidnapping has gone from ‘accidental’ to ‘intentional.’” 

  
At some point, I’ve returned to standing, and I stare down at her and try to consider my options, but something about her is so disruptive to my thoughts that I can barely pull any thoughts together, let alone any solutions.  
Cassandra Nichols’s jaw drops and I can see fury rising in her eyes. “You came in here to tell me it was an accident, and now you’re telling me I’m your prisoner?”

  
Yes.

  
But then a thought comes to my mind that makes me smile. “Think of it more as a…medical hold.”

  
“This is illegal.” The fury that was just in her eyes is now veering toward panic—a surprising reaction from a woman with the emotional range of a potato. “You can’t keep me here.”

  
I laugh, and then I realize that she’s completely hysterical to say something as ridiculous as that. “Ms. Nichols, surely you know my reputation. I’m infamous around this town for my talents in making problems…disappear.” And by _problems_ , I mean _people_. “Surely you didn’t think that I was above a little false imprisonment?”

  
The color on her lips pales, so I imagine the very little blood in her face has just drained, which sends a bit of my own blood out of my face as I remember that my job isn’t to scare the woman into an early grave. I put up my hand and try to reverse some of the damage I’ve caused. “I’m not going to lock you in some cell. Really, you’re acting like I’m some sort of serial killer,” r _ather than someone who kills for money, or power,_ “but I really am doing this for your own good.”

  
A beat passes before the color returns to Cassandra Nichols’s lips and she mutters, “How paternalistic.”  
I can tell from her tone that she’s given up fighting me on this, and I feel relief that I didn’t know I wanted flood through me.

  
I’ve been off since I entered this room. No, that’s ridiculous, it’s not the room. It’s Cassandra. I feel like I’m teetering on a tight-rope every time I open my mouth to her, as though the words will send me down one side or the other. I wish my mind would afford me some consistency, but it can’t even decide whether it wants to comfort her because she’s hurt, or push her down because she clearly doesn’t have a filter on that pretty mouth of hers.

  
These are the thoughts I hold onto later when I remember how far my own words flew out of my control. There I was, minding my own business, trying to figure out how to get this half-woman, half-corpse out of my hair and my hotel. But she’d given me more to think about than her file had, and I felt some inexplicable sense of urgency standing in the room with her after having overconfidently announced my new role as her jailer. But there she was, lying down on emerald sheets that clashed horribly with the dark orange, silk negligee that covered her emaciated and frail body. Something about the sight short-circuited my brain, because the next thing I knew, I was offering her some kind of job offer—not even as a bartender, or something that I easily could have used to keep her under my thumb, but as a hired gun. I was asking this woman—the woman who had just agreed to be interrogated by one of the most notorious people in the city to avoid loss of lives—to kill people. For money. For _me_. 

  
Even as I watched the debacle unfold in silent horror, my voice was responding to a question she’d asked about _why_ she should accept the job. Whatever logical part of my brain that remained was begging for her to reject the job and undo whatever my rogue mouth was doing, but instead my traitorous tongue grabbed on to the only valuable knowledge it could.

  
“Do you have something better to do?”


	6. Home, Sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass checks out her new digs

Jack didn’t expect me to say yes to his _incredibly weird_ job offer. I could tell by the way his eyes widened when I’d said, “Okay.”

He didn’t say anything else before he pulled out a phone and dialed a number, barking out orders like I wasn’t even there. Busy man, I guess.

When Tav arrived, Jack swept out the door without a backwards glance at me, although he did look at Tav and say something along the lines of, “Yours for hers.”

Tav is one of the men who kidnapped me, but I learn quickly that he’s not a bad guy. His older brother is apparently the one who was watching over me when I woke up, and they’ve been assigned to “watch” me, by which I mean they follow me everywhere. I’m not even allowed to lock the bathroom, and nearly everything that wasn’t attached to the floor was removed, so unless I get very creative with some toilet paper, I don’t know exactly what they worry I’ll do in there.

Since Jack left, I’ve been alone with Tav or Luke, plus Dr. Mainlove. Neither of the brothers ever leaves me alone with Dr. Mainlove, which I’m beginning to feel is for my safety rather than anything else. Still, they let her inject me with a bunch of shit with doctors scribbles all over the bottles, so I’m not sure I’m exactly in good hands either way. Dr. Mainlove stays in the hotel for the first week, but she starts visiting daily, then weekly as time progresses.

I spend all my time with Tav or Luke, and after I’m finally able to walk again, I’m allowed to go wherever I want…so long as Tav or Luke is shadowing my every move. I haven’t seen Jack since he hired me, which Luke says is not unexpected.

“He’s all work. Until you’re healed, he’s got no reason to be here.” Luke had told me.

Despite being “all work,” he seemed plenty busy with me from afar. I’d noticed Luke carrying out a wooden block of kitchen knives when I’d finally started using the kitchen, and when Tav had caught me staring out the window, an inspection to make sure the windows were reinforced was conducted only a few hours later.

I understood why they were so cautious, but it was extremely annoying to me considering that I actually _wasn’t_ planning on finishing what I’d started.

Jack may not have meant it, but he’d been right—I _didn’t_ have anything better to do, and the job itself sounds kind of exciting. I’m vaguely aware that I should be more conflicted about taking someone’s life, but it seems like such a foreign concept that I barely think about it at all. Mostly I spend my time getting acquainted with The Acropolis, and when Dr. Mainlove says that I’ve recovered enough to explore Luke is determined to give me a grand tour.

“All work” Jack apparently prepared for this, because after Dr. Mainlove steps into the elevator—which I’ve learned can only be summoned with a magnetic badge that Tav, Luke, and Dr. Mainlove each seem to have—moments pass before the elevator doors open again, and out steps a stranger. At least, I assume she’s a stranger. I can’t see her face behind the rack of clothes she’s pushing off the elevator and into the suite. When the rack has been fully wheeled in and the elevator door closes behind her, the woman’s face pops up from behind the clothes.

When her brown eyes fall on mine, a smile breaks across her face and she releases the rack to rush to me and pull me into a hug. My entire body tenses as her arms go around me, but Luke doesn’t intervene so I assume she’s safe, albeit _weird._

After _way too long_ in her embrace, the woman steps back and I can see her again. She’s shorter than I am, but her presence makes up for the difference, and I feel totally eclipsed by this woman’s cheer.

“Jack’s told us to call you M—”

This is clearly not the important part of whatever she’s about to say, but it’s news to me, so I interrupt with a “What?”

The woman’s mouth pauses in a perfect ‘O,’ but she doesn’t seem the least bit ruffled by my interruption and she continues, “We all get names, sorry, I’d assumed you’d been told.”

I shoot a look to Luke, but he just shrugs apologetically and I return my attention to the woman.

“Sorry, I really thought he’d told you,” she says again, but I wave my hand to tell her to _get on with it._ Despite her bubbly enthusiasm, she’s apparently well-versed in _hurry-it-up_ , because she starts in on the important stuff next. “My name is Kelsey, I’m one of Jack’s personal concierges.”

Tav had once told me how everyone working for The Pantheon under Jack is employed—formally—by The Acropolis, so everyone is employed as a hotel staff. I remind myself to ask Luke what jobs are done by someone who is Jack’s “personal concierge.”

Kelsey flips some of her dark, dark hair over her shoulder before grabbing clothes from the rack and holding them up between us, her face making an assortment of ridiculously exaggerated expressions as she examines the fabric of a dark-green, a-line dress. She holds it out to me and I grip the hanger, not knowing exactly what it is that she wants from me.

“You know,” Kelsey leans in conspiratorially, and I notice a glint of mischief in her dark brown eyes, “You’re the _only_ person Jack has offered a job to without being asked?”

“I did not know that.” I reply, staring at the dress in my hands and looking back up to her for clarification.

Kelsey expresses her emotions with her whole body, so when she rolls her eyes at me, I notice it goes from her eyes, to the tilt of her head, to the jutting out of her hip. “Change into this dress. Bossman told me to dress you and I’ve never let the man down, I don’t plan on starting today.”

I consider letting her know that I’m fully capable of dressing myself, but I don’t want to piss her off because I don’t know what a “personal concierge” is, and I don’t need to make my new job any harder than it needs to be with workplace conflicts.

So instead, I pull off the crimson silk nightgown I’m wearing and unzip the tiny metal zipper on the dress. The underwear I’m wearing is made of pink lace, which doesn’t match the dress, but that’s fine I suppose.

“You’re not shy at all, huh?” Kelsey is grinning at me as she looks over my body without an ounce of shame for it.

I shrug. She doesn’t need to know it’s because I’m not allowed to fully close my door anyway, since Jack’s worried I’ll hang myself with a silk nightgown or something if Luke or Tav doesn’t know my _every move._ I don’t remember if I was more shy during the earlier days of my recovery, but by now I’m more bothered by the waste of energy it takes to go find privacy with how empty the suite seems, with only two or three of us ever in here at a time.

Kelsey helps me pull the dress up, then she zips it closed for me. I wonder if she’s going to do this every day. It would probably help, since those zippers and my wrist seem like a match made in hell.

Kelsey leans down and pulls a pair of block-heeled, gold mules from the rack and places them before my feet. I lean on Luke as I slide them on, and Kelsey doesn’t stand until she’s sure I can walk in them.

I’ve gained weight, which is noticeable in the dress. Pre-abduction, my own health was completely insignificant to me, and it showed. I didn’t know exactly what went into killing people for money, but post-abduction Cass is certain that skin-and-bones aren’t gonna cut it. This dress would not have stayed on my body a month ago. The strapless top would have slid pathetically down my skeletal frame into a messy pile on the floor. Now, the dress clings to me like it was made for my body, which I think is impossible, but considering Jack’s resources, I wouldn’t doubt that Kelsey’s somehow managed to sneak in and take my measurements while I slept.

“What’s with all the green?’ I ask, gesturing around to the suite.

Kelsey’s head tilts in confusion. “There’s nothing about green. This suite is the Hera Suite, we selected green because it felt more appropriate for the peacock décor.” She pauses for a second before turning her excited look to Luke, clutching her hands together in front of her chest in a pleading gesture. “Can we take her to the other suites?”

“Oh, no thank you, I don’t want to bother anyone—” I put my hands up in front of me, but Kelsey’s eyes turn to me like I’m the eighth wonder of the world before she turns back to Luke.

“Shut up,” she says to him, although he hasn’t said a thing since she stepped out of the elevator.

Luke shrugs and Kelsey turns to me, pulling my hands into hers as she looks into my eyes. Just being around her felt moderately unsettling, like her brain worked at a different frequency than mine. How was she so exuberant? It seems exhausting.

“M!” At first I don’t know what she means, then I remember that it’s supposed to be what I’m called. I make another note to ask Luke whether I can request _anything else._ I make _another_ note to ask Jack how he comes up with these names, but Kelsey confuses the thoughts right out of me when she says, “The suites are empty.”

Kelsey clearly is trying to tell me something with this, but her energy is throwing me off so I just nod and turn to Luke.

“I believe I was promised a tour?”

Luke nods and looks at Kelsey, who is now carting the rack into my room, before he pulls a card from his suit jacket and taps it against the elevator buttons, hitting the down key and murmuring in a low voice so Kelsey can’t hear, “We’ll visit the suites another time.”

I nod my assent and step my gold heels into the elevator. I’d never noticed before because the wall behind it is the same design as the walls of the rest of the elevator, but the back window of the elevator is completely transparent, and when the elevator begins its descent, the wall disappears and I’m gazing out at the city. Not a single building is as tall as this point in the sky, and it feels like I can see miles and miles. I’ve spent twenty-five years here, and never seen the city like this. But then the elevator descends below the height of another hotel, and the view is no more. I turn to the front and watch as the number above the doors counts down until it reaches the first floor, and Luke and I step out onto a marble floor. Yet another magnetic lock greets us in the form of a glass door, which opens out into the main lobby of the hotel.

After all that time being poor as fuck, followed immediately by time trapped in thousand-plus thread count sheets, I’d never considered what The Acropolis might actually look like. I’d known that it was a luxury hotel, but everyone in the city knew that it was tainted with blood, so while one half of me thought that it would be all gold and diamonds, the other part of me thought it might resemble the seedy motels I’m more familiar with.

I hadn’t considered the possibility that it would be _beautiful_. Like Jack, the hotel is beautiful despite the blood it rains down on this city. I guess Jack _is_ The Acropolis, in another sense.

I stow these thoughts as Luke escorts me to marble counters that I assume make up the front desk. A well-groomed, uniformed blond woman smiles at us.

“How can I help you today?”

“Hey Tess, this is M,” Luke cocks his head in my direction, as though there’s any mistake of who he’s talking about. I’m still focused on my new name, which I’ve forgotten. Again.

Tess’s blue eyes go wide and she begins to look me over like a science experiment, but Luke doesn’t seem to notice as he goes on, “I’m giving her a tour today, so make sure everyone knows we’re making the rounds.”

Tess nods silently, still looking at me like a freak of nature, and she hasn’t even laid eyes on the dark purple scars on my arms. She’s still examining me as Luke pulls me away from the desks, moving me toward the opposite end of the hotel, to a set of elevators that apparently reach different floors on the hotel. None of these elevators go anywhere near the suites.

Luke gets in the elevator behind me and presses a button marked with an “S.” He doesn’t pull out his magnetic badge, but the elevator starts moving anyway.

S, it turns out, stands for Spa, which the hotel has dedicated an entire floor to. I’ve never been to a spa, so most of the words on the wall behind the man at the desk are complete gibberish to me. Swedish massage? Hot stone massage? Clay bath? Ugh, rich people really are something else.

Luke takes me to several other floors—E stands for Entertainment, and houses the hotel’s theater, Virtual Reality lounge, and a library exclusive to hotel guests. There are several pools throughout the hotel, including the spa floor T for Terrace, where a huge balcony allows guests of the hotel to swim, bathe in a hot tub, sunbathe, or order from one of the nineteen fully staffed bars around the hotel. There’s also an A for atrium, which is closer to the top floors, but still not quite the level of the suites. I notice that the buttons are missing a floor thirteen, and I resolve to ask Luke about it later when we aren’t in the main part of the hotel with guests—whom Luke has referred to as ‘civilians’ at least three times since we left the suite.

But I don’t have to ask Luke about it, because he presses the button for the floor “0,” and this time he _does_ pull his badge from his jacket and presses it against an empty spot to the elevator wall, but instead of descending, we begin going up until we pass floor twelve and stop before reaching floor fourteen.

The elevators open to a surprisingly barren hallway. There are no decorative plants or unnecessary benches like there were in all the other hallways. Unlike the carpet of floor E or the glass stones of floor S, this hallway is entirely made of glimmering black stone. I stand closer to Luke as we move down the eerie hallway, passing nondescript door after nondescript door. Finally, we reach _yet another_ nondescript door, and Luke knocks.

“Come in,” I hear a familiar voice call, and Luke opens the door to reveal an office. A surprisingly shabby office, with a metal desk that has more than a few dents in it, and metal filing cabinets that have both dents _and_ holes that I can only assume came from bullets.

There are no decorations on the walls, and Jack is looking at a laptop when we step in.

When Jack realizes who it is, his eyes sweep over me before moving to Luke. His mouth dips into a frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Luke says, “Just showing M where she can find you if she ever needs you.”

Jack’s frown deepens and he stands, balancing his fingers on his desk as he looks at Luke. “Which is unnecessary because she will never be left alone.”

“She’s right here,” I mutter under my breath, and Jack’s frown disappears and he looks conflicted before he resolves to ignore me again and returns to glaring at Luke.

“Yes, Boss.” Luke doesn’t seem affected by Jack’s shortness. I’d expect a weak man to apologize, and a strong man to take offense, but Luke lets it slide off his back as he turns me around and carts me out of the room.

I’m about to ask Luke how I’ll know which nondescript door is the _right_ nondescript door, but Jack is right that I won’t be returning here alone, so I drop it.

When we reach the elevator, a door closes and I turn back toward the sound, surprised to see Jack walking in our direction with his navy suit jacket in hand.

“Luke, go find Tav.” He says, and Luke gives one nod before disappearing into the elevator, leaving me alone with Jack.

Jack pulls his suit jacket on and holds out his elbow for me to grab, so I do.

“Where has Luke taken you so far? I’ll take you anywhere else you’d like to go.”

Turn about is fair play, so I decide to take a page from his book and ignore him. “Did _you_ know,” I try to make my voice as conspiratorial as possible, which is not very, “that I’m the _only_ person you’ve hired without being asked?”

Jack looks taken aback for a moment, and then a grin spreads across his perfect features. “I did, actually.”

“Why is that?” I try to meet his eyes, but he won’t meet mine as he looks forward at the elevator that Luke disappeared in.

“I supposed I had nothing better to do,” he chides, playfulness in the curve of his lips.

I bump into him with my shoulder, but I don’t respond.

Jack hasn’t pressed the button on the elevator, and we stand in a growing silence as we stand side-by-side, watching the doors as if we expect them to do something. After a moment, Jack says, “You look beautiful in that dress.”

I don’t know what to say, so I continue watching the elevator. I can feel him glance at my face, then he glances away before leaning down to hit the down arrow. We’re silent as we return to the first floor, and he guides me back to the private elevator that leads to the suite. The _Hera_ Suite. When we reach the elevator, I notice for the first time that all the buttons are represented by symbols rather than numbers. I assume the peacock feather is for the Hera Suite, but Jack presses a button higher up than the peacock feather. I think it’s a diamond, but I manage to refrain from rolling my eyes at the sheer gaudiness of it.

As the elevator ascends, Jack begins to shift nervously. After a few seconds, he turns to me, and this time he meets my eyes.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with you.”

A bitter laugh escapes my lips, and I raise my eyebrow at him, “You’re not the only one, hoss.”

Jack looks to the elevator doors again, and they start to open. When Jack steps inside, I follow him, keeping my hand linked with his arm until we reach a small table near the window. Jack pulls out a chair with his free hand. I move in front of the chair, and he pushes it in as I sit. Although I’m aware of how objectively awkward the situation is, I myself feel completely comfortable. In fact, I feel as though we’ve done this one hundred times before, although I’m certain I’ve never had anyone pull my chair out for me before.

Jack moves across the suite, and my attention turns to the room rather than the man. The layout is largely similar to my own suite. I imagine they saved costs by keeping the same blueprint for each of the suites, so the only way to differentiate is by the décor. This room is entirely black, white, or gold. Black appears to be the dominant theme, and all his furniture is metal. The green couch in my room is velvet—a horrible choice of fabric if you ask me—but his is leather. He doesn’t have any decorations in the entire room, but I can tell from the liquor cabinet he’s pulling different bottles from before looking at the label and returning them to the shelf that he’s got at least some indications that the suite belongs to him.

He returns with two glasses and an unopened bottle of Glenmorangie. I keep my eyes fixed on the liquor as he pours two glasses and sets the bottle at the edge of the table, then he sits across from me, taking a _big_ drink of his own scotch.

I pick up my own glass and swirl the liquid around before slamming back the equivalent of _definitely way too much for one shot_ and placing the glass back on the table. Fortunately, as I’d suspected, this isn’t whiskey made for shooters, so it goes down smooth even though I have to take a second swallow to finish it off.

Jack is looking at me, but his expression is unreadable. I’m wondering if that’s going to be the standard.

“How are you feeling?” Jack asks, noticeably moving his gaze to the angry purple slashes down my wrists.

“I’ve been worse,” I smile at him. Jack levels a look at me, but I don’t elaborate. I don’t even know why I’m here. Dr. Mainlove has already told me that I’m not going to be well enough for training for another couple of months. Jack hasn’t spoken to me a single time since I accepted the job, but I’d already received a bank account—thank you, Luke—with more than a hundred thousand dollars inside. Tav told me that when he started on Jack’s payroll, he didn’t see him for _six months_ , so there’s no reason that I have to be here until I’m ready to start cracking skulls, or whatever it is he wants me to do.

“I hope you’re not trying to tell me to stop my paid sick leave early and come back to work,” I joke, and alarm briefly crosses his face.

“No! No, of course not.” Jack takes another drink from his glass, and I grab the bottle and pour myself another, which Jack doesn’t comment on.

This time, I sip. Well, that’s not true, but I don’t take a shot, so this time I still have liquid leftover when I return my glass to the table.

“Are you having second thoughts?” He leans forward, as though the answer to this question is actually important, even though he’s basically threatened to keep me imprisoned unless I take the job. I don’t bring any of this up, however, because the answer is—

“No.”

“It’s a very dangerous job.”

I raise an eyebrow and look up to meet his eyes. “Do you _want_ me to be having second thoughts?”

I’d meant it as a joke, but I can see it on his face.

I look outside the window at the gorgeous skyline. The lights twinkle like stars further out, and I wonder how I’ve never known how pretty this city really is.

“I’m not having second thoughts.” I stand, hoping to end this conversation before he can do anything like decide to keep me prisoner instead, but he stands as well, and we both stand there until I slowly lower myself back into my seat, then he sits as well.

“You don’t know me, Ms. Nichols, but one thing you should learn about me is that I am a man of my word. I offered you a job, and I will not revoke that offer, even if…”

I wait, but he doesn’t continue.

“Why did you bring me to your suite, Jack?” I take another sip of my scotch, finishing the glass and returning it to the table.

Jack’s eyebrows furrow and he looks wounded when he replies, “I don’t know.”

I nod, and pour myself another glass.


	7. Imprisonment of the Mind is Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack learns something new.  
> Cassandra gets her freedom.

Three weeks have passed without seeing Cassandra.

This is intentional.

The last time I’d spoken to her had been just like the first—I'd lost all control.

I'd been in the middle of looking through some crucial financial reports, reports indicating embezzlement, when Luke had brought her in and the moment I'd seen her the financial reports faded into the white noise that everything else becomes whenever she’s around.

If I'd thought that Cassandra was spellbinding before, she was absolutely enchanting in that dress that brings out the green in her eyes. Before, she'd been skeletal and ghostly, barely hanging onto life even before she'd lost all that blood. The skin that had nearly been blue was now a smooth alabaster, and the pink faintly across her cheeks served as a reminder that Cassandra had survived. The most noticeable difference was her figure, which couldn't be overlooked in the dress that clung to her delicious curves.

I made a mental note to give special compensation to the chefs that have helped bring her to a healthy weight.

But then I'd considered why Luke might have brought her there and I’d gotten upset, and then once Luke had said, "M," it was like a spell was broken. Until moments later, when I'd remembered how close Cassandra had been standing to Luke, and how they'd spent the past month together, and then Cassandra was in my suite and we were drinking and all I could think about was the bedroom door behind her, and then I'd been thinking about whether I'd prefer she sue me for harassment before she's trained to kill, or for her to just kill me right out of the gate.

Then I'd been thinking about other things, like what Ramo had told me when--after my evening with Cassandra--I'd ordered him brought back from his temporary suspension to the cells for a renewed interrogation. The first time I'd met Cassandra I'd been off my game, but I wasn't invested enough to question Ramo much more than "Are you stupid?" and "Is this ever going to happen again?" and "Is she alive?"

But after the night I'd had drinks with Cassandra, I was desperate to know every second of the ordeal, and the only thing preventing me from punishing Ramo was the knowledge that Cassandra would be dead if Ramo had either common sense or a moral compass. Ramo had been trying to collect a debt on a small-time crook and all-around scumbag named Thomas Russel, and Ramo insists that Cassandra is related to Russel, but nothing I’ve found has tied Cassandra with the lowlife. Unfortunately for me, that doesn’t mean much considering how evasive the weasel has been, but from everything I’ve ever found on Cassandra, there’s no record that she has any contact with anyone who has contact with Russel. So I asked Ramo why he thought so, and he showed me a photograph on his phone of Cassandra with her arm wrapped the waist of a Thomas Russel. I zoomed in to the woman’s face and still couldn’t believe the likeness. Rather than looking like her mother, it was more as if they were twins.

And now, after three weeks without seeing Cassandra, I can't stop thinking about her place here. I'm desperate to get her to change her mind about accepting the job, but I can't figure out any way to make that happen without pushing her back to whatever ledge she was on before she arrived. Usually solutions are simple for me, and they have been for a long time. Find out what someone wants, then offer them that in exchange for what you want. Simple.

Except Cassandra doesn't want anything. I've given her money, and Luke has confirmed that she has only used her account to tip hotel staff. Kelsey spent a small fortune on clothes from the finest boutiques around the city, but she's reported that Cassandra just selects the first outfit on the left and doesn't glance at the closet again. I’d nearly gotten my hopes up when it was reported that Cassandra had visited the spa, but when I asked what services she’d received the staff had told me that she'd just had her hair trimmed.

The only parts of the hotel that Cassandra shows any interest in are The Hera Suite, where she spends almost all of her time, and the gym.

Worst of all, Cassandra hasn't left the hotel once.

It's these concerns that convince me to listen when Luke begins demanding that she be given her own key to the hotel. Kelsey has been demanding the same since the day she met Cassandra, but I'd ignored her because Kelsey is always a dramatic optimist prone to disastrous unreasonableness. That's also part of why I decide to listen to Luke. There's another part of me that wants to get Luke and Tav out of her suite as soon as possible, but it's easy to push to the side of my thoughts when I realize that I now have legitimate reasons to do so.

Dr. Mainlove called in a friend of hers to evaluate whether Cassandra is still a suicide risk. Dr. Mainlove's friend is a former psychiatrist named Hannah Melgar, who lost her license a few years ago for her involvement with a pharmaceutical smuggling ring. Fortunately, the former Dr. Melgar has no idea that I'm the one who pointed the DEA in her direction in the first place.

After I retrieve the keycard made for Cassandra, I head to her suite, which turns out to be completely empty. I phone Luke, who doesn't answer, and then my surveillance team, who tells me that Luke and Cassandra left for the gym half an hour ago.

Dr. Melgar is on her way, so at the front desk I tell Tess, who schedules all my non-hotel-related meetings, to have Dr. Melgar escorted to Cassandra's suite when she arrives, and then I continue my way to the gym.

In the gym, Cassandra and Luke are nowhere to be seen and I remember that Luke didn't answer his phone the last time I rang, and my heart is starting to pound harder when Carlos, the personal trainer who works weekdays, nods to the ballet studio. I make my way past the treadmills and ellipticals and push open the door to the ballet studio, and the sight that greets me makes the blood rush into my ears.

In the middle of the ballet studio is a mat that looks more like a mattress with Luke lying on his back across it, without a shirt. His abs are moving as though he's out of breath, which makes sense because Cassandra, in nothing but a sports bra and spandex shorts that will be burned the moment she's in something else, is straddling him. With the way that Cassandra looks right now--flushed and glowing with sweat, the tops of her breasts slightly out of her bra, moving up and down with her heavy breathing--there's no way Luke doesn't have an erection, but I can't tell because Cassandra's scantily clad pelvis is pressed right against Luke's.

They still haven't noticed me, and I see in the mirrored walls that Cassandra has herself propped up by her arm, and at the bottom of her arm, her hand rests against Luke's chest. The blood in my ears is roaring at me to punish Luke for laying a hand on Cassandra, but then I notice something and my blood chills into silence.

Cassandra's rosy lips are curved into a smile. A genuine smile. Nothing sarcastic, sardonic, cynical, or irate is behind her eyes.

I feel like my chest is being pressed against the wall, but then her wide, hazel eyes meet mine in the mirror, and her smile widens, and whatever is hurting my chest is turned into a warm liquid, trickling through my body.

When Luke notices my presence, his color reminds me more of Cassandra's skin on that first night than it does now, and he hurriedly pushes Cassandra up and off of him.  
I finally locate my tongue and I ignore the thick obstruction in my throat as I coldly ask, "Am I interrupting something?"

Luke looks like he's about to explain, but Cassandra's smile falls--a gut-punch reminder that her smile wasn't for me--and then she rolls her eyes, which definitely is for me, and steps between me and Luke.

"As much as it's not your business, Mister _Boss_ man," Cassandra draws out her words, and I try to focus on her face even though my desire to put Luke into an early grave and my desire to drop my eyes down to the parts of her breast spilling from the top of her bra make it really hard to pay attention. "I was kicking your driver's ass."

Luke's color has improved significantly, and he eagerly follows that up with, "Maybe it's easier to show you."

Cassandra and Luke share a look that makes me want to inoculate him with an ice cream scoop, and my heartbeat accelerates when I see Luke's hand form a closed fist just before he lunges at the petite brunette who must weigh no more than half of what Luke weighs. But as Luke's closed fist reaches her, the tiny woman who nearly died less than two months ago turns into a blur, and I barely notice her hand come up and divert his fist past her head before her body twists toward Luke, who is now looking less like my driver and more like Goliath, before her arm comes around his and Luke is flipped, landing hard on the mat before Cassandra is straddling him again, a pen that she definitely wasn't holding a minute ago pressed against his neck like the blade of a knife.

Then, Cassandra returns to her feet, helping Luke up as well. With her moving slower, I can see the purple scars on her wrists and I close my mouth, which I hadn't realized was open, and swallow.

"Dr. Mainlove hasn't cleared you for rigorous activity."

My voice cuts through the room, much harsher than I realized. Immediately, I know Cassandra is going to be upset.

But when I look at her, she's just rolling her eyes, arms folded across her chest, tantalizing me with the view directly above her folded arms.

_What is happening to me?_

My last serious relationship was several years ago, but I didn't remember it being like this. Some sort of obsession with her actions and thoughts and wellbeing? If I recall correctly, my last relationship ended because I wasn't invested in her. But at the time, I'd blamed that on the fact I was hoping to kill her. Of _course_ I wasn't invested in her—I was under the impression that she wouldn't survive the year, and she didn't.

Maybe this time is different because it's the opposite. Back then, I'd been unattached because I'd known that Rachel would die. Maybe now I was growing attached because I want Cassandra to live.

Then, the weight of what Cassandra has just demonstrated hits me.

"Luke, how long have you known about this?" I narrow my eyes at him, but he shrugs it off.

"Just this week."

 _That's_ why he's been insisting I give her a key, because she's been able to make a run for it for weeks. She could have incapacitated either one of them. She probably could have even killed me in my suite and stolen my master key if she'd wanted.

I turn my attention to Cassandra and those ridiculously hypnotic eyes of hers. "There was nothing about that in your file."

She doesn't respond, and I'm starting to realize the pattern. Cassandra will always respond to my direct questions, even if she is unwilling to directly answer, but she never volunteers information, even if I make it obvious what I want.

It's irritating, because I hadn't realized how often I do that, but she's making me double think everything going through my brain, and even then I can't seem to get it right.

"Why didn't you take him down on the first floor and make your escape?"

Cassandra snorts-- _snorts_ \--at the question.

If it were anyone else, I could punish them for insubordination, but I'm becoming used to the useless pile of mush my brain becomes when dealing with Cassandra, so I do the next best thing. I get rid of witnesses.

"Luke, you and Tav have vacation days. Use them."

Luke nods once and then reaches his hand to Cassandra and ruffles her hair, then sends an apologetic look my way when he catches me looking at him with whatever look is on my face.

Then I remember one other order of business.

"Luke."

Luke stops and turns back.

"Tell Tess that Dr. Melgar's services are no longer required."

Luke nods before sweeping out of the room.

Cassandra’s eyes are focused on me as she asks, "You just tell him to go on vacation and he does? Are you going to do that to me?"

"No." _Because you're never going away._

I don't mention to her that I've been making Luke and Tav switch off eleven hour shifts for nearly two months in violation of dozens of labor laws. They deserve a vacation.  


Cassandra gives me a long look. Whatever playfulness she had with Luke was gone, and she's back to the monotone, unfeeling woman that I thought made up all of her until about six minutes ago.

Cassandra loudly inhales, then props a hand on her hip and my eyes drift down, past her perfect breasts and onto her stomach, where I can see two faint, white lines that I would recognize anywhere.

Cassandra has been stabbed before. _Twice_.

White fingers move over the scars, obscuring my view of them. I look up to see Cassandra watching me and I feel a sliver of embarrassment for having been caught staring.

"If you must know," her voice pulls me out of my thoughts about those scars, "I didn't escape because I _want_ this job."

She wants a job killing people, which she was offered on a whim, after she'd been kidnapped and attempted suicide?

"I find that hard to believe."

Cassandra lifts her shoulder in a shrug and moves past me to the door. I follow her out of the ballet studio and through the gym, and she resumes talking when we enter the elevator.

"I don't care if you believe it. You asked, that's the answer."

If that's true, it throws a big wrench into my next plan.

"I have another job offer for you." I press a button and the elevator slows to a halt between floors.

"Which is?"

"Anything in the hotel. Same salary, same benefits."

Her plump lips press together in a look that can only mean disapproval.

"If I wanted to be in charge of finances?"

I stop breathing as I consider this. It would be disastrous, but it would keep her from going up against people like Daumier and Zhao. She'd be safe.

"It's yours."

Not a muscle moves in her face. "And you'll hire someone else as your, oh, what do you call them?"

"Private contractor, and yes."

Two deep lines appear between Cassandra's eyebrows and I'm praying silently that this is the end of it, although I can tell that it’s not.

Then, her face smooths into her standard apathy, and she says, "If I agreed, you would deserve it, because that is a very irrational deal to give anyone. But I won't agree, because I don't want that job. I want this job."

I refrain from mentioning that nothing has been rational since she arrived, especially not me, and instead I focus on her words.

"You want this job?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

At this question, Cassandra's calm and apathetic demeanor slips off in an instant as her eyes narrow into a chilling glare that sinks into the bottom of my stomach. For a half--no, a quarter of a second, I think that Cassandra might do something to me. Hurt me? Kill me?  
But in another instant, her apathy falls into place and I wonder for a second if I imagined it altogether. For the second time today, I've seen another side of Cassandra. I wish I could say I preferred her smiling, but her smile hadn’t been for me, had it? But this hateful look? The green in her eyes turning to venom? That’s mine, and mine alone.

I thought that glare was the end of it, but apparently I'd been right about Cassandra's willingness to respond to direct questions.

"Because,” her voice is flat and her emotionless eyes are fixed in front of her, "You're not the only one of us with people to kill."


	8. A Cass by any Other Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass finds out the reason for her new name.

It's laughable that I ever compared Jack to the devil, because the man is as handsome as he is easily dumbfounded.

For what feels like the hundredth time today, he's gaping at me, with those heavily lashed, gray eyes unblinking as they _slooooooowly_ figure out what I'm saying.

And what I'm saying is the truth. While I'm willing to put off my _eternal slumber_ to check out this new job opportunity, that doesn't mean that I can't stand to benefit from learning how to kill. I'd never considered murder before Jack had offered me the "private contractor job," and how could I? I'd have died in a prison without getting through half of the people I would have wanted to. But Jack has resources that weren't available to me before, and more and more, this opportunity is looking like the solution to a problem I never knew I had. Until now.

I lean past Jack and press the button to start the elevator down to the first floor again.

I've abandoned my dumbfounded employer in the public elevator and I'm halfway across the main lobby to the private elevator when I remember that I need a card to get up to my suite. And it sucks to be nearly nude in a hotel lobby. It's cold as _fuck_ because I was just sweating in the gym. There _must_ be another floor to change over on, because this is an absolutely ridiculous way to treat VIP guests, making them haul ass across the front lobby after they go out and do anything else in the hotel. Not that I would know what’s standard for a VIP, but it seems like “convenience” should be pretty high on that list.

Jack catches up to me and says, "We need to speak, in private."

_As if we ever do anything else._

Jack takes me to his suite again, but this time I'm not holding his arm, so when the elevator doors open I quickly move past him and make my way to the couch. I regret my choice almost instantly because the couch is way too hard to be comfortable, and the leather feels awkward against my bare legs.

It's colder in here than it was in the elevator, and I can feel bumps prickling onto my skin.  
"Will this take long?"

Jack makes a kind of _tsk_ sound, then disappears into a room that's exactly where my bedroom is in my suite.

_Uh, I hope he isn't expecting me to follow him in there._

I cross my arms across my stomach to try to get warmer. I refuse to curse myself for not bringing more clothes with me, Luke, for one, doesn't kidnap me on my way back to my room.

After a few moments of staring at the abysmally minimal decor, I’m relieved when Jack returns carrying a big, light blue sweater. A big, light blue sweater definitely belonging to Jack, but beggars can't be choosers, so I hop to my feet and ungracefully yank the soft material from his hands, pulling it over my head in record time.

"Sorry about not...bringing you to your suite first." He's staring at my legs, which are kind of looking a little blue around the goosebumps.

"Do you have a keycard for me?" I blurt out, because I can't wait any longer now that my hypothermia has been staved off.

Jack narrows his eyes at me suspiciously, then his eyebrow lifts. "How did you know that?"

"Because you told Luke to take a hike, and you’re too busy to babysit me yourself?" I suggest, and this seems to be what he was looking for because he reaches into the inside of his suit jacket and pulls out a slim, green, metal card. When he hands it to me, I can see that it has an embossed, gold "M" on the lower right corner.

"Say," I start, turning the card over in my hand and mentally noting to ask about the whole green thing later, "Are you a fan of James Bond or something?"

Jack's brows knit together. "Not at all. I'm not really one for action films. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering why you chose to call me 'M.' Everyone else has a normal alternate identity, mine sticks out like a sore thumb."

Well, maybe Tav doesn't, but Luke and Kelsey definitely do.

"Ah," Jack moves toward the liquor cabinet, and I wonder if he wants to sit awkwardly in silence while we drink again.

I could go for that.

Actually _,_ it wasn't the _worst_ thing ever.

When Jack moves to the table beside the window again, I follow him, abandoning my spot on the Worst Couch Ever. The window is covered by a light screen, which makes sense because the sun is nearly right outside the angle at this hour. In fact, it's probably too early for a drink, but I feel like I could go for one, so when Jack pulls the chair from the table for me, I sit.

Jack pours us both drinks, and this time when he pulls in his chair, he raises his glass between us so we can clink them together. I tap my glass to his, then take a sip of the dark liquor, which tastes like some kind of bourbon.

It hasn't gone unnoticed by me that he's avoided asking any questions about my motivations for accepting a job murdering people for money. It might have something to do with the daggers I'd glared his way, but whatever the reason, I'm grateful.

"I chose 'M' because I thought it would help you adjust. You're not part of this world and I didn't want you to have a hard time with the change of your identity, so I chose your middle name. Emilia. E-M. M."

Exactly what I'd hoped it wasn't.

I again contemplate asking him to select another-- _any_ other--name, but what could I tell him if he asked why? And he would ask. And I would answer, because he deserves to know, because he's not the fraud between the two of us.

So instead of saying anything, I drink, and I think. The more I drink and the longer I think, I come to a conclusion about the name. It's okay if they recognize it. In fact, it's _great_ if they recognize it, because I'm going to make sure they all recognize it for the promise that it will be.

A promise of death without mercy.


	9. No More Sick Leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack decides what to do with Cassandra after she's cleared to begin her training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have a paper due soon so if I disappear for a few days, don't give up on me!  
> When I started writing this I didn't have too much planned out on paper, but I've recently finished outlining the rest so hopefully things should go a little bit smoother from here on out.  
> I'm hoping to have another chapter out at least by the end of tomorrow (ideally tonight).

Much to Cassandra’s annoyance, Dr. Mainlove refuses to clear her for strenuous activity for another three weeks, but I haven't mentioned to her that she probably would have been cleared faster if she didn't insist on doing several hours of training every day, mostly because Dr. Mainlove told her exactly that several times and it had only earned her a glower from Cassandra.

Still, the three weeks had been well-spent. For the first time, Cassandra left the hotel. Although she somehow escaped the surveillance I’d had following her, I was immensely relieved when I never felt a crippling anxiety that I’d anticipated with her leaving on her own. The anxiety I’d forecasted before I’d ever known that Cassandra is secretly a ninja. And while she probably expected me to feel frustrated by her escape, knowing that she’d managed to lose a tail that I'd never told her about filled me with a sense of reassurance that I'd never thought was possible after losing Viktoria.

When Dr. Mainlove finally cleared Cassandra for her training, I immediately ordered the luggage Kelsey prepared for us at the start of the week to be taken to my personal car, since my driver was still on vacation for another week.

Cassandra'straining would take place two hours outside the city, and her impressive martial arts skills—which I’d forbade Cassandra to practice while on rest, a prohibition about as successful as the prohibition on alcohol from what Carlos reports—cut her training shorter by months. I’d already arranged to drop her off at Misha's cabin while I fly to week-long hotel conference in Dallas, which I planned to explain to Cassandra as soon as we were on the road but she didn't ask any questions as I held the passenger door open and she climbed in, and once we reached the highway I resigned myself to the fact that Cassandra's apathy was still strongly in place, despite her explorations during the past three weeks.

As we continue toward Misha’s cabin with only the low hum of the radio between us, I feel a foreign nervousness bubbling in my stomach as I think about what Misha will think of Cassandra, and then my thoughts race to wondering what Cassandra will think of Misha.

Misha, my predecessor.

Misha, my father.


	10. Friends Are the Family We Choose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra meets Jack's father and mentor, Misha.

Jack spends a total of seventeen seconds in the driveway of the cabin, which it turns out is the exact amount of time it takes to walk to the passenger door and open it before moving to the trunk and pulling out the white suitcase that I’d seen sitting in my closet since Monday. After setting the suitcase on the ground, Jack quickly straightened and looked to the cabin, where I could see a blond man in his late fifties or early sixties walking toward the steps to the drive.

“Misha will take good care of you, M.”

Now that I’d embraced the nickname, I found that I actually kind of liked it. Aside from the frequent James Bond questions I had to field from other Acropolis employees, I feel a familiarity with the name that I never felt with “Cassandra.” But I don’t object when Jack calls me Cassandra when we’re alone.

Another fantastic bonus to the name is the reminder it serves of the purpose I’ve given to my second shot at life. My third shot at life, if we’re being honest. Jack hasn’t asked me anything about what I was doing before Ramo had drugged and kidnapped me, not since that first time I met him, but I still feel dishonest when I think of all the things he doesn’t know about me. Then I think about how he’s never questioned me about who I plan to use his resources to kill, and then I feel like he doesn't mind that I have secrets and I don't feel so guilty anymore. Instead, I feel appreciative, and more and more I’ve noticed the way Jack avoids talking about things I don’t find interesting. As a result we spend most of our time in silence, but it doesn’t feel like those silences I’m used to—silences that grow heavy until one person is driven to say anything to break the tension, and silences that carry a promise of pain. The silences I share with Jack, however, feel entirely different. Sometimes when I’m with Jack, I feel like he’s the only person in the world that I can spend time with without him bringing up things that remind me of worse times. Sometimes that makes me wonder what he did find in my file. Whether he actually knows why I’m going to kill people that are more inside the criminal underworld than they are the civilian world. Well, most of them anyway.

Those thoughts never bother me for long, because I can see the curiosity in Jack’s eyes whenever he spots any scars he hadn’t noticed before, but he never pries, and something about his not prying makes me feel guilty for not telling. And so my new worries begin again, running alongside the mental tally I keep of how long Jack will really keep me around. My worst fear of all is that Jack will pull this entire opportunity out from under my feet. I don’t know what his feelings for me are, but I can tell that they are not rational. I sometimes worry that he’ll show up one day and revoke the job offer and take away my keycard, and then I’ll be trapped in the same hopeless whirlwind I was in before I’d figured out a way to put the job offer to good use. Jack hasn’t done anything to make me think he’s planning to ever do that, but the fact that he can makes me nervous. So nervous that I went to Markus in HR, which I couldn’t _believe_ was combined with the legitimate hotel’s HR, and requested a copy of the card, pretending it was on Jack's orders. I feel a little better knowing that even if he takes the first card, I can escape with the second to finish off my list.

I feel different here, in the woods. I can remember the road, but if Jack wanted to keep me here, my only chance at really getting away would be through the dense thicket of trees surrounding the cabin.

This is what I’m thinking about as Jack gets into his car and shouts, “Hers for yours, old man.”

Jack’s words are met with a bark of laughter from the approaching man, and Jack puts the car into gear and speeds off, leaving a light cloud of dirt in the air where he was parked seconds before.

I grab my suitcase and begin hauling it toward the cabin, but the blond man intercepts me and pulls the case from me.

“Hello, M,” The man continues toward the house and I follow him. “My name is Misha, I'm Jack's father.”

My feet stop their movement, and Misha continues for only a second before he realizes I've stopped and he turns back to look at me. He smiles at me, and I can see the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes that indicate frequent crinkling at the corner of his eyes. Jack’s smiles are rarely given, but even those smiles end at his lips for the most part. Misha smiles with his whole face. I see nothing in Misha that resembles Jack.

My doubt must be clear on my face because Misha continues, “Not my biological son, no, but more my son than he ever was to that birth father of his.”  
Misha has an almost imperceptible accent that I would guess is Russian. It's more obvious in the venom he puts behind the words "birth father," which I mentally note as a sore topic.

I resume walking and Misha does the same. Even though he doesn't look like Jack—aside from his age and blond hair, Misha is shorter than Jack, his jaw is more square, and his blue eyes remind me of the sky on a clear day--Misha's answering silence reminds me of Jack, and for some reason I feel a little better as I follow this strange man into his cabin and up the wooden staircase. Misha brings all my things into a room that clearly belonged to a woman at some point, then sets my suitcase on the floral blue comforter. Then I remember what Jack said before driving out of here like a bat out of hell.

“What did that mean, 'Hers for yours'?”

Misha’s smile grows bigger, “That boy has always had some brass balls, hasn’t he? That means 'her life for your life.’” When I continue to stare blankly at him, he elaborates, “It’s a command to any….hmm…how do you say….babysitters? It means that you give up your life, if you must, to keep a target alive. It means that if the target dies on your watch, your life is forfeit to whoever paid you to protect the target.”

“And your _own son_ is willing to kill you?”

Misha gives me a sly wink, “He's certainly welcome to try.”

Misha leaves without another word, closing the door behind him. I’m intending to grab something to change into after a shower when I notice the photograph on the nightstand beside the bed. I pause and reach down for the small frame, bringing the photo up to the light so I can see what’s in it.

There are three teenagers—two boys and one girl, none much older than fifteen—standing arm in arm, smiling up at the camera with three huge grins. The boy on the left could have been confused for an adult with his height, but his smile was easy and you could tell, even from the photograph, that he preferred to let trouble roll from him rather than deal with it directly. The girl in the center was over a foot shorter than the boy on the left, although compared to the boy on the right it appeared as though she was barely shorter than average, and her smile was mischievous in a way that clashed unfavorably with her school uniform, which consisted of a long pleated skirt and a button up blouse with a small ribbon in the front that matched the color of her knee high socks. The boy on the right had his arm wrapped around the shoulders of the dark haired girl, and his smile seemed to burn right through the page. He was wearing a baggy shirt that was torn in several places, and ridiculous looking shorts, and his hair was shaggy and nearly covered his face, but there was no way that I wouldn’t recognize the three in this photo.

_Luke, Kelsey, and Jack._

None of them have ever even hinted at having known each other for so long, and yet here this photograph is, clear evidence that they’ve been friends for over a decade.

 _Maybe I’m not the only one keeping secrets_.

I pull the back from the frame and look at the back of the photograph, which reads, clear as day—

Lukas, Kelsey, and Jack.

There’s a heart beside the names, penned in by whoever listed them out. Their _real_ names.

I return the back of the frame and place it on the nightstand, returning to my clothes and selecting pajamas for after my shower. It turns out that there’s a bathroom attached to the room, and I feel briefly grateful for the extra privacy until my eyes pass the trees visible from the window and I remember how easy it would be to be trapped here. I push the brief knot in my stomach aside and head to the bathroom.

After my shower—more comfortable and warm than I’d thought a shower in the middle of nowhere would be—Misha shouts through the house that dinner is ready, and I decide to grab the picture frame on my way downstairs.

Misha recognizes the frame before I finish stepping through the doorway to the kitchen. His eyes light up when he sees the frame and he leaves the stove to come remove the frame from my hands and inspect it himself.

“How are Lukas and Kelsey? Ever since they started under Jack, they never come to visit me.”

“They both seem...fine. I don’t understand how you know them.” I say, because it’s the closest to the truth about what’s bothering me.

Misha looks at me for a long moment before he returns to the stove and begins dishing spaghetti onto plates, followed in short order by sauce and meatballs. Misha fixes two plates and walks them to the table across the room, where two glasses of water already mark our place settings. 

“Please, sit,” Misha pulls out both chairs and sits in one before I walk over, then begins eating. This is a relief, because I really wasn’t sure if he had some strange etiquette rules. Apparently not, because the man eats like he just finished hibernating. A vacuum would intake that food slower than he is. As I'm wondering how he isn't choking, he briefly pauses his shoveling of food into his mouth and clears his throat. “Sit, and we can talk.”

I comply, partially because I want answers, but also because the smell of the sauce is making my stomach rumble in a loud protest to any further delay. _Did I forget lunch today?_

I put a fork full of pasta into my mouth as Misha takes a sip of water before speaking.

“We used to live in the same neighborhood.” Misha tilts his head in the direction of the city. “Well, Kelsey did not, but her tutor lived in our neighborhood, and she got to know Lucas and Jack that way. She went to a Catholic school that was rumored to be for the very devout, and I think our neighborhood was the only time she got to be a child, even if she was already fourteen when she first started coming around.”

  
“And Luke?” I prompt, wondering how he couldn’t have ever mentioned being friends with Jack during the time we were spending twelve hours a day together. 

  
“Lukas…Lukas was a local boy who had mutual connections with Jack. They weren’t very close, but they did get closer later. In fact, Lukas had a good football scholarship that he turned down in order to work for Jack when Jack took control of The Parthenon. That was a pity, because his family really couldn’t afford college for him otherwise.”

  
It felt like he was talking about versions of the people I was familiar with, but from an alternate reality. They looked the same, their names were the same, but they were completely different from the people I know. Kelsey is always dressed to the nines, which sometimes means she is showing a lot of skin that I’m sure was considered prohibited at whatever Catholic school made her wear that uniform. Luke was a football star who could have done college football and been completely legitimate, but chose to go into the underground with a guy who didn’t even acknowledge him half the time? And Jack… I’d never seen Jack out of a suit, let alone clothes that were tattered and oversized. The thing that made him look the most unfamiliar wasn’t his clothes or his hair, it was his smile. A smile that touched all of his face, despite the dirt on his face, his messy hair, his torn garments. I’d never seen him like that.

 _Happy_.

Maybe we have more in common than I thought.


	11. Dig Two Graves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack returns, Cass gets to see some father-son time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO SORRY I've been gone so long. I was studying for a pretty rigorous exam, which ended up getting delayed due to COVID, then I started a new job and adopted a cat with a bunch of health issues and the longer I was away, the harder it seemed to get back to this (details fade from memories and all that). Fortunately I located my outlines and have been able to drum up some new material. Enjoy~

Jack returns to the cabin after a week, taking the room beside the one I’d been staying in. Until he’d returned, the cabin had felt like a martial arts summer camp, with Misha taking me out each day to teach me about sparring enemies who intend to kill, and using a variety of weapons in more ways than previous Cass ever would have imagined possible. With Jack in the cabin, things feel…different.

In part, I can’t help but narrow my eyes when I glimpse him wearing flannel button-downs and jeans, unable to shake the feeling that he doesn’t belong outside the city, despite the evidence that he’s quite comfortable here. When he catches me glaring, he gives me a prize-winning grin that would make the cover of _People_ before I roll my eyes and return to my training with Misha, who doesn’t mention my distraction, which is a welcome respite from his previous methods of dealing with distractions: a swift blow to the softest tissue.

The strangest change is dinner. Despite the absolute lack of small talk between Jack and Misha during the day, they can’t seem to quiet themselves over dinner. Jack recounts his trip to Orlando—boring, humid, and crowded, he’s said—and Misha describes my progress with positive adjectives, not recounting how only two days earlier I’d been grounded by a particularly unforgiving blow to the sternum only twenty minutes into practice.

Each day of the week passes like this. Misha trains me, spars with me, then gives me reading material on firearms, blades, and basic surveillance for every evening. Jack and Misha have lighthearted chats over dinner, during which Jack recounts how Luke and Kelsey are faring, his daily improvements to the hotel and the Parthenon, and small inconveniences that have arisen while he’s been away. Misha recounts to him what my progress has been, and at the end of the week Misha tells him, “I think she’s ready, so long as she’s kept away from the regulars.”

Jack is nodding when Misha adds, “Especially Daumier,” which transforms Jack’s carefree demeanor into one of severity.

“I’m not a fucking idiot, Misha.”

Misha raises his hands as if to say, _My bad_ , and Jack’s attitude cools immediately.

“Did you hear that?” Jack turns to me, “Misha says ready for the city. We’ll head back tomorrow.”

I must make a face, because Jack immediately looks inquisitive and confused, so I quickly turn my attention on the vegetables I’ve pushed to the side and spear enough with my fork to occupy my mouth before Jack thinks to ask any questions. I have no idea if it will stop him, but he turns back to Misha and they resume chatting about their day-to-day, and Jack mentions to Misha that he has my first job planned for when we return. When he slakes his gaze over me to see what my reaction is, he appears disappointed—but not surprised—by my apathy.

Still, now, I think he wants me to reconsider, but he has no idea what kind of fortune our meeting has brough to my door. Even now, as I finish the last of the dreaded greens on my plate, I’m focused on my potential to kill. Despite my muted emotions, I can feel small ripples of excitement under my skin, because I’ve finally found a goal, and a way to achieve that goal, all thanks to Jack. Now I’ve been deemed “acceptable” by a man who knows more about weapons, fighting, tarp, and detergents than anyone ought to ever know, and I _feel_ ready. Which is why, when Jack and Misha get into a hushed argument at the foot of the stairs, I quietly—just the way Misha taught me—open the door to Jack’s room and take his keys from the jacket lying across his dresser.

After returning to the room beside Jack’s, I go to the dresser and pull out a black outfit I’ve been saving since arriving. I quickly change and crawl under the covers, waiting until I hear the sounds of Jack’s door closing, and the quieter, more distant sound of Misha’s after that. I force myself to wait another two hours before pushing the blankets off of me and diving under the bed to pull out the pack I’d prepared. I pull the straps over my shoulders and clips in the front before opening the window and lowering myself down, now eight feet from the ground, and I let myself drop. I roll with the momentum as much as I can, but I cant risk damaging the containers of liquid in my pack by pushing my weight on them, so my right side gets more force than ideal and I know I’ll have bruises in the morning.

Jack’s light is still out, so I know my fall didn’t rouse him. I start across the yard and toward the car when I see a silhouette leaned up against it. I freeze, air completely still in my lungs, as I take in the casual posture and crossed arms. I let out my breath and continue marching toward the car. When I reach it, Misha looks me up and down, but doesn’t remove himself from the driver’s side door.

“Are you planning on returning?” Misha asks, gesturing at the pack.

“Yes.”

Misha doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move from my way either, so I continue.

“You said that I was prepared.”

Misha nods, but pulls something from his pocket. “You are prepared.”

“Then will you _please_ move yourself so I can leave?”

Misha opens what he pulled from his pocket—his wallet—and holds it out for me to see. In the dark of the night, I can barely make out the lines of what looks like a young woman’s face. My eyebrows pull together in confusion, and I stare at Misha, waiting for him to move or explain.

“My daughter, Viktoria.” Misha states, bringing out a flashlight to illuminate the photo. I glanced back at Jack’s room, but the light was still out. I turn back to examine the photo and I can immediately recognize the similarities. They share the same nose, same lips, and her blue eyes are shaped as his behind her glasses. Her hair is golden and tied in a tight updo of some kind. She’s smiling into the camera, but she has color on her cheeks as though she’s not used to being photographed. Misha continues, “She was a friend of Jack’s. In a way, she is the reason Jack leads the Pantheon.”

Misha seems to expect me to respond, but I have nothing to say, so he starts again. “My Viktoria, she was a brilliant mind. A kind soul. Although she knew our family had great wealth, she was determined to earn the money for her schooling through local tutoring, which is how I came to meet Jack. She had no desire to involve herself with my underworld career, and I made great efforts to keep my family life separate from my work. Those efforts—as you may have guessed—failed. During her second year of medical school, she was killed by rivals in the narcotics trade; a retaliation of sorts, after I had killed one of their sons—”

“If you’re trying to tell me that I will be subject to retaliation, I can assure you that it will not stop me—”

“Just listen,” Misha gave me a stern look, and carried on, “After Viktoria was killed, I went mad with my grief, responding by hunting the entire family—a syndicate which now no longer exists because of my own retaliation. I’m trying to tell you that no matter what you do, you will not feel better. You will not change the past, and you will only hurt more people by trying to. Revenge is a curse, M. You will be consumed by it, and in the end, you will be buried by it. It would have buried me if I did not have Viktoria’s friends to mourn with. I had tainted the reputation of the Pantheon as one of violence and cruelty, and when I turned over control to Jack, Jack had to work harder than I ever did to restore peace in the city. My rage also ended the goals of Lucas and Kelsey, who sacrificed their dreams to help Jack return the city to the tentative stability it had endured before my leadership. I allowed Viktoria’s death to destroy everything else I cared for, and I hurt Viktoria’s closest friends and family by making them set aside their grief to be responsible for my own. You cannot let the desire for revenge consume you. I’m asking you now to return to the house and to move forward. You will already see more blood than you were meant to, there’s no reason to see more.”

It occurred to me that Viktoria must have been the one who lived in my room before me, a quasi-sibling to Jack before her murder. She must have been the one to take all the photos of Jack, Luke and Kelsey—obviously shy in the face of a camera herself. And she had brought them all together and brought Jack to a new family—a father who cared for him.

But none of that had anything to do with me.

“Please move.” Even I could hear the coldness in my voice, but it didn’t appear to surprise Misha in the slightest. He merely folded up his wallet, and returned it to his pocket before stepping aside, leaving me generous room to get into the car.

“I wish you would reconsider.”

“I won’t.” I closed the door and started the engine, leaving Misha in the driveway as I headed to my destination.


	12. Like a Virgin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass does some charity work.

They say that a girl never forgets her first, and I want my first kill to be just as memorable as losing my virginity had been. Not only would it have to be in a special place, but with the right person, which is why I couldn’t let Jack’s target be the first. No, this honor would have to go to someone _special_. For this occasion, I want it to be intimate, personal, and _perfect._

Admittedly, I hadn’t quite imagined that I would spend an hour crouched behind a dumpster, plenty long enough for my legs to cramp and my mind to start wondering if perhaps I should have come up with a better plan, but my nose had adapted to the smell by now so the only thing hindering me was my own impatience. I tried not to think of the possibility that he wouldn’t show up, even though I’d bought a burner phone and texted him before hunkering down out here.

On what must be my hundredth musing that he’s stood me up, a taxi pulls right up to the alleyway and drops him off like a vision before my eyes. My heart stutters and I don’t feel like I’m getting in my necessary oxygen as I look him over. My hand with the knife begins to shake and I cover it with my other hand to keep it steady.

_Terrence Driscoll. Never hoped to see you again. Until now._

He’s in his fifties now, with graying hair and oval glasses that make him look more like a professor than a heroin dealer, but I know he’s still up to his same tricks because I’d looked him up before Jack had sent me to Misha, although Jack’s information was less detailed than my own knowledge of the man.

Driscoll’s jacket trails in the light breeze going through the alleyway, and his nose crinkles when the smell from the dumpster hits him. He checks his watch and impatiently looks around for me. “Are you here?” He calls out, and I emerge, crossing my arms over my chest and hunching over. He can’t see the knife, and he approaches me without a care in the world. When he sees me, his eyes sweep over my body and I suppress the urge to stab him where he stands. _Stick to the plan_.

“I never expected you to turn to me,” he looked down on me with distaste in his eyes. “But I can get you what you need, if you’re willing to pay up.”

I try not to think about what kind of payment he’d expect, and instead look up at him with desperation in my eyes. “I’ll give you whatever you want. P-p-please, just one hit, p-please.”

From his jacket, he pulls a packet in a small bag. _Knew it._

I decide to make it convincing and in one movement I tuck my knife into my belt and lunge for the packet, but he pulls it away quickly.

“You can pay now, or you can come with me and I can get you as much as you want.”

At that, my eyes go wide and greedy, looking at the packet and then at him. “And what would you want in return?”

He smirks, a smarmy and disgusting grin that I’m plenty familiar with. “Just some errands, drop-offs and the like.”

_Liar_. I look confused, then pensive, and then I nod and he turns around. “Then follow me.”

I could not have planned this better myself. With his back turned, I pull the knife from my belt and launch myself at his back, wrapping one hand over his mouth and dragging the knife it a swift motion across his throat. Blood sprays in front of him, some getting on my hand still over his mouth as his muffled shout turns into an indecipherable gurgle. More blood begins to spill down his front, so I release him and he falls forward, still making those wet, breathy sounds.

I reach behind the dumpster and pull out my bag, using a towel to wipe my prints from the knife and wrapping the blade into a plastic bag. I then pull out an envelope and return to Driscoll, who is still clutching at his neck and slowly writhing around on the dirty asphalt of the alleyway. I kneel down and wipe his face of my prints, and I can tell he feels the sting of the bleach on his skin because the gargling gets louder again.

“You were right, Driscoll,” I move to stand over him. “I never would have turned to you for anything. You should have listened to your instincts.”

I show him the envelope before leaning over him, although his eyes have become so panicked, I don’t think he’s even noticing me anymore. “I have a letter for your friends. I’ll leave it in your coat pocket here,” I tucked the envelope into his jacket, returning to my full stature, “So make sure you get them this message, K?”

With that, I zipped my pack closed and strapped it to me again before heading out into the quiet streets and into the car I’d stolen from about eight blocks away. I returned the stolen car to its spot and retrieved Jack’s car, also technically stolen, before driving back to the cabin. Misha stood on the porch as I parked and got out, and he didn’t mention the blood visible on my hand. Instead, he beckoned me inside where he had me hand over the pack and my bloodied clothes. I also handed him Jack’s keys, which he told me he would sneak back into Jack’s coat before I was finished cleaning up.

After spending thirty minutes scrubbing my skin raw to get all traces of blood off, I found him at the breakfast table with bacon, eggs, toast and coffee laid out for two. Misha doesn’t ask questions, and I don’t bother explaining to him that more people than myself were benefitted by my actions tonight. We sit and eat in silence until the sun is risen and Jack appears, luggage in hand, asking if I’m ready to go. I’d had my bags packed before I left last night, so I head up to get them while Jack and Misha exchange private farewells. Before we head out the door, I make eye contact with Misha and give him a small nod of appreciation. As we make our way to the car, Misha calls out, “You’re welcome back here anytime.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Cass get a chance to dress up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly I've forgotten most of the minute details of what I've already written, and I don't want to discourage myself by reading through everything again so I've elected to just keep on truckin'. If there are errors with how a character refers to another, or some details about visuals or structures, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm sorry, I guess? I might go back after *everything* is finished, but i don't think I'll meander into my own work until I've finished the major plot points.

Something weird was going on. I’d woken up on our last day at the cabin to Misha and Cassandra sitting across from each other at the dining table, sipping coffee in utter silence with breakfast plates empty beside each of them at _five in the morning_. How long had they been awake? Why were they sitting in silence?

Things only got weirder after Cassandra and I left. Although she was her usual quiet self during the drive, I’d noticed that the car was missing a half tank of gas, and I later received a message from Misha suggesting that I clean the car, which is usually our code for scrapping cars with evidence in them. All of this happened, apparently, while my keys were still in my room.

The oddities reached a peak when we arrived at The Acropolis and Cassandra asked if she “may be excused” before our event at the gala.

_What?_

And _then_ , she disappeared into her room for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. My mind was going wild with the possibilities. Had she gotten up to something while I slept? Had she gotten injured? Is that why the car needed to be scrapped—because her blood was in it and Misha knew I intended to keep her off the radar? Had she run from the house at night, and Misha had taken the car to retrieve her? But how far could she have gone to have used up half a tank of gas? _Half_?

When I told Luke my concerns, he recommended that I leave her be—that it was probably nerves before the first time she’d take a life. That would make some sense—why she’d been awake so early, why she and Misha were sitting in silence after their _very_ early breakfast, why she had locked herself in her suite, and perhaps she and Misha had taken the car to talk about her concerns? But another part of this theory made no sense whatsoever. I couldn’t imagine Cassandra in her suite, pacing the floors looking nervous. The most emotion I’d seen from her was the occasional annoyance at my charming antics. I also didn’t want to get my hopes up, in case she was actually planning to cancel her portion of our agreement. I have no idea what I was thinking by offering her the job; this was her last chance to remain on _that side_ of the line. Once tonight was over, she’d cross over without any opportunity to ever leave this life. Her decision not to go through with it would also mean I would need to find a new way to make her involuntary psychiatric hold feel more like a choice and less like a prison.

All of these things are swirling in my head as I finish putting on my tuxedo. I’m working on my cufflinks when I hear my elevator chime and the soft footfalls of someone entering the lounge.

I exit my room and come face-to-face with my prisoner herself, looking supremely bored in the most expensive gown I’ve ever purchased for a woman. For a moment, I wonder how Luke had ever got me thinking she was nervous, but I can’t think on that too long because I’m too busy staring at her. Her defined legs are visible through the gaps in the gossamer ribbons hanging from her waist, each ribbon a different shade of pastel. Her scarred wrists were covered by long, transparent sleeves that started below her shoulders but came all the way down to her middle finger, where the fabric looped into rings. The same feet I’d watched her kick Misha in the face with only yesterday were now clad in silky flat slippers, beaded and pink to match her bodice, which is tied tightly with a soft pink ribbon, tied in a perfect bow just between her—

My eyes snapped to her face, only to immediately be distracted by the impossibly small, crystal roses beaded throughout her hair. The sides of her hair were gently pulled back into a braid, leaving most of her chestnut waves falling freely down her back. It reminded me to grab the final piece of her ensemble from my own nightstand—a small knife with a pink handle, the blade imperceptible once slipped into her braid, looking like a delicate crystal ornament to compliment those tiny crystal roses.

“You look like a faerie.” I tell her, spinning her around once. I’m sure she probably thinks I’m ensuring that everything is in place, but really I’m just trying to make sure her skirt fabric covers enough of her skin. Or perhaps I’m just getting my own fill. I know she would never have chosen this dress for herself—truthfully I wouldn’t have either—but I need to enjoy it while she’s in it.

“Why the ridiculous get up?” She asks bluntly as we step into the elevator.

“Gregory Newman has a type. Feminine, submissive—”

“Fairies?” Cassandra interrupts, and I feel the corners of my mouth quirk.

“Essentially.” I lean over and press the stop button, then turn to face her. She’s been examining her newly pink nails, but when the elevator freezes, she turns to look at me. Her face is so neutral that I internally chastise myself for ever thinking her nervous. “Cassandra, you don’t have to do this. I don’t know what I was thinking when I offered you the job, but there’s no penalty for backing out. We can just go upstairs and eat dinner together. We could go to the gala and you wouldn’t have to do anything at all. Please reconsider this. You will never be able to take this back.”

Cassandra’s stare is completely blank. “Are you telling me to reconsider as my boss? Do you need Newman killed? Do you have any other person on-staff willing to do it?”

I bite my tongue, because no, I’m not telling her to reconsider as her boss, and yes, I do need Newman killed, although I don’t have any need for it to be _tonight_. I could easily hire a local mercenary to take care of it, like I’d been doing before her weird spell caused me to offer _her_ the job, but she was right again—I have no other person _on-staff_. I wonder briefly how much she’s been reading our files in the time I’d thought she was breezily exploring The Acropolis’s many amenities.

I take so long to answer that she reaches over me and presses a perfectly manicured fingertip onto the ground floor button, and we continue our descent. After we get into the back of the limo, I ask her to go over the plan again, and I curse myself for her proficiency as she recites the plan back to me _perfectly_ , as though she memorized the file that had waited for her on her kitchen island. I’m beginning to suspect that Cassandra has a few hidden talents. Aside from being a part-time martial arts expert and siren, hypnotizing men into giving her job offers in a seedy criminal underworld.

When we arrive at the gala, Cassandra seems instantly tense. Fortunately, this is a local benefit and there are no cameras lining the entryway, but there are a few reporters narrating in front of a camera. Cassandra’s eyes are fixated on them, and I can tell she’s no longer listening to whatever I was just talking about. I lean in while Luke comes around to open our door, and murmur, “We can leave right now. You don’t have to do this.”

This pulls her out of her haze but has the opposite effect as I had intended. She straightens her back and curtly replies, “No. We’ll go in.”

Despite this, as I help her out of the car, I angle myself between the reporters and her, and she seems to relax as we move past them and toward the double doors into the gala.

I’d instructed her to be _subtle_ , but I realize my error almost immediately. How could I not? People from all over the enormous room glance over to see the latest entrants and seem to pause to look her over. I barely convince myself not to push her behind me and instead I offer my cover-shoot smile into the crowd, which turns at least some of the oglers away. The attention isn’t entirely unwelcome. I need her to be seen with me for most of the evening for the plan to have the best chance of success, but my mind goes haywire every time another appreciative glance goes up, and then down, her body.

I look down at her to see how she’s handling it, and my own heart stops when I realize that she’s smiling. In my rational mind, I know the smile isn’t real, I know it’s for show, but my heart takes a few too many moments to catch up, and I think that I might be having a heart attack before I can hear it thumping—too loudly—once again. Her smile is _radiant_ , and it takes at _least_ ten times the strength as before to prevent myself from pulling her behind me and shielding her from the hungry gazes of the men all around us.

_Don’t do it, Jack_. I repeat in my head. _She’s already exasperated with you_. _Don’t do it._

Instead, my attention is on her yet again when she taps my arm. I follow her gaze and am embarrassed to note that while I’ve been transformed into a caveman for this evening’s entertainment, she’d been smiling at the crowd to find her target. To faithfully do the job that I’d assigned her.

_This is a new low, Jack_. I scold myself. _Even for you._

Cassandra hasn’t picked up my suddenly inferior mental capabilities, and instead guides us through the crowd to the table the host I barely even remembered had directed us to. At the table, Cassandra gives me a second heart attack by raising herself up on her toes to brush her lips against my cheek.

_I’m never washing my face again._

While in the midst of my second cardiac arrest of the evening, Cassandra moves out into the crowd, toward Gregory Newman. Before she reaches him, she turns abruptly toward a hallway and as I notice Newman start heading the same direction. I debate going after them, but she’d agreed to spend most of the gala at my side, where people could see us together. Rationally, I know she was trying to bait him into their first—but not last—contact of the evening, but I still war with myself.

_What if things went wrong?_ She’d only recently healed from her own suicide attempt. _Wrong_ , my brain impertinently corrects. I ignore it. Misha had cleared her to work in the field, and Misha has never been wrong. But he had no idea how close she is to the brink. Just because Misha has never been wrong before didn’t mean he couldn’t be wrong now. Misha has no idea how close she’d been to death when I’d met her. How close she is, still. How much she needs to be cared for. Looked out for.

Just as quickly as she’d vanished, she reappears, her smile a beacon that calls all the bachelors—and some married cads—to gaze at her. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t one of them as she sashays gracefully to our table. Before she sits down, I pull her chair closer to mine and she sidles into it with a coy smirk on her lips.

I wonder if she’d let me kiss her. You know, for the mission.


	14. The First Time. Again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass completes her first job for Jack.

I cannot believe that _this_ is the dress that Jack picked out. I look like I belong in a children’s ballet, not at a charity gala. Even worse than the cotton candy pink is the fact that everyone—and I do mean everyone—has taken notice. Everyone is staring at the dress, and I consider stepping on Jack’s foot for ever having purchased the damn thing. Everyone we pass is staring at us in one way or another. Women are glaring at me over their champagne flutes, likely upset that The Almighty Jack Caine Warren has dared to stoop so far below his level as to bring a bartender to a charity gala such as this. Not that they know who I am, but the glares are _highly_ communicative. Other women are staring at Jack in appreciation, which makes sense considering he’s pretty much the hottest bachelor in the city. And most dangerous, if you live in the parts of the city that talk. Some women are into that. Obviously.

The men are staring too, probably at this loud and unbelievably impractical gown. They lose my interest quickly, but Jack is taking too long scanning the crowd, so when I spot Newman I tap him and then pull him to our table where I give him a quick peck on the cheek for appearances and move toward the hallway that contains the restrooms. At five yards away from Newman, I looked up and caught his eye. Still on me. He’d stared at me from our grand and dramatic entry.

_Wow, this is going to be easier than I thought_.

I gave Newman a smile and a wink, then turned into the hallway. Great luck for me, the hallway branched off yet again, and when I noticed Newman following me I turned into the smaller alcove before whipping around.

“I see you’ve noticed me,” I say when he’s rounded the corner, and he slows, confused, before I beckon him closer to me. “I noticed you too. But I can’t be seen with you. My date is a very jealous man.”

Unfortunately for Newman, I have the winning ticket here. I flash him a view of my leg through the sheer fabric of the skirt, where a purple bruise blooms on my flesh.

_Hook. Line. Sinker._

Newman looks absolutely mortified, and rushes right up to me. “Are you okay? Did he do that to you?”

I bashfully bat my eyelashes and wipe away completely fictitious tears from my eyes. “He doesn’t realize his own strength. And he gets in these fits…”

Newman grasps my hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “What a terrible man. I—I can help you get away from him.”

“I don’t know,” I whimper. _Is this guy really believing this stuff?_ “It’s much worse when I disobey.”

I’d specifically chosen this word after reading his file. All his heroics aside, Gregory Newman was a sick piece of work. Jack could not have selected a better first job than this man, if I hadn’t chosen the ideal first man myself. The file didn’t say it, and I’m sure that the police couldn’t prove it, but Gregory Newman got his kicks by torturing women, then threatening his victims and their loved ones to silence them. We’d only caught wind of him because he’d assaulted (or tortured, more accurately) one of the hotel staff, which is a big no-no to Jack, whose power and loyalty lies almost entirely in his protection of his employees. Now, protecting the staff is my job, too, and I plan to take it _very_ seriously.

I nervously look back toward the crowd. “I wish that you could help me, but I have to get back. He’ll notice that I’ve been gone. Goodbye.”

With that, I leave Newman in the alcove and return to the festivities. I watch as Jack subtly—albeit barely—slides my assigned chair closer to his. Perhaps I’m still high on last night’s kill, but I feel the best I have in a long time as I slip into the chair beside him and he wraps an arm around my bared shoulders. His eyes are fixated on my lips and I’m aware that I’m smiling—probably the first time he’s seen it. I almost tumble out of my chair to whisper him the news. “I’ve got him.”

Before we’d arrived, Jack had me recite the details of the plan to him. Part of the plan required us to stay together for the majority of the evening, so we did. When we danced during the symphony portion of the event, I’d murmured for him to pull me closer, and to be possessive, both of which he achieved with perfect attention to detail. He gripped me to him as we danced, and when we stood apart, he never took his eyes off me. I’m almost certain that when we were cheek to cheek, he was glaring out at anyone who dared to look at us. It was kind of thrilling, in a way, but I spent all my time wrapped to his body staring out at Newman, making slightly melancholy faces as our bodies swayed with the music. After our second course, I made another trip to the restroom and found Newman there again.

“Please, tell me your name. I can help you if you’ll allow it.”

Of course he would. Not. I’m his perfect victim, dressed up with satin bows and everything. “My name is Emma.” _Close enough_. “I don’t think you understand. My date—my lover, he has so much power in this city. I’ll never be able to escape. If I even attempted it, he’d tie me up and never release me.”

Yet another phrase made especially for Newman. He liked his victims bound? Helpless? Oh, I could be all that and more. _For a price._

Newman seems to watch me nervously and then paces off. I use the opportunity to freshen my makeup—still perfect, go Kelsey for selecting these brands—and return with the feeling of Newman’s gaze on me. When I reach our table, I stand behind Jack and wrap my arms around his front, then lean in to press my lips against the corner of his mouth.

“Miss me?” I purr into his ear. He frowns and turns his head to look me over. Then he surprises me by pulling me into his lap. Oh yes, this is definitely going to frustrate Newman. Jack is better at this espionage trickery than I’d expected. Jack’s arm wraps tightly around my waist and he pulls me so close to his chest that I can’t budge an inch. He releases me only when the next dish of the who-knows-how-many-dish-meal is served, and I move back to my proper chair as the next section of fundraising begins.

After two more courses— _how much do these people eat?_ —Jack leans to my ear and whispers, “Any time after now is fine. Just tell me.”

His breath tickles my ear, and I suppress a shudder at the foreign feeling as I look among the crowd for Newman again.

He’s at his table, and he’s staring at me so unblinkingly that I wonder if he’d ever taken his eyes off me. This time, I have to suppress a shudder. This time, I lean into Jack and whisper, “Now.”

Jack pulls out his phone and begins muttering on the phone about stocks and bonds—whatever, we all know what our jobs are after the moment he calls Luke—I whisper something into his ear, and he nods as though I’d asked to do something. Then I swiftly make my way toward the back exit. Newman breaks from his table and follows me like a lovesick puppy. But I know he’s just sick.

When I open the back door, I half expect a fire alarm to alert everyone, but the door is quiet as I make my way into the cooler night air. Luke is there, pretending to smoke a cigarette when I burst through, followed quickly by Newman. Time to turn up the theatrics.

“Please, please just take me home.” I plead to Luke, who appears like a statue, completely unfeeling. Honestly, I would half believe it myself if I didn’t know the plan.

“Lady, you know what he would do to us both if he found out.”

Newman interrupts, “Then just take her to my home. She’ll be safe there.”

I whirl around, pretending I had no idea he had been listening. “W-what? To your home?”

Newman gives me a dazzling smile, which I “reluctantly” return.

Luke looks conflicted, then responds, “Climb in, quick. Before he finds out.”

I rush to the back of the limousine, and Newman holds the door open while I climb in. I grab the syringe inside the opposite door and conceal it behind me. Newman gets in behind me and then orders Luke to drive.

Luke pulls out onto the street and the doors automatically lock.

_That’s my cue._

Newman begins to say something, but I’ve already uncapped the syringe and plunged it into his neck. It will get to his heart fastest there. Immediately after I’ve injected him, I leap as far as I can get from him in the limousine. As much as I resent this gown, it still has more work to do before the night is finished.

Newman has already begun choking on his swelling tongue. It both reminds me of Driscoll and doesn’t. No gargling, just uncomfortable gasping for air. I think that Jack had mentioned something about a paralyzing agent, and then an agonizing agent, and then a lethal factor which would wipe Newman off the face of the planet? Yeah, that sounded right.

Newman is still breathing when the agonizing agent sets in. I can tell because his breaths get really sharp and his muscles get incredibly stiff, and his eyes nearly bulge out of the sockets. He’d be screaming if he could. I almost _wish_ he could, but I know the risk is too great to allow it. The agonizing agent lasts a few minutes until Newman collapses, either passing out or dead. It doesn’t matter, he’ll be dead soon regardless.

Luke stops the limousine in a quiet suburb, and we’re soon joined by another limousine, which I know is carrying Jack, probably driven by Tav.

When the other limousine stops, I exit through the door not blocked by Newman’s corpse(?) and swiftly make my way to the other limousine. Jack exits and holds the door open for me, which seems supremely stupid, considering that the plan could go to hell if even one of us was seen by a proactive neighborhood watch volunteer.

We pass the rest of the ride in silence, and when we arrive at the hotel, we’re greeted by paparazzi. A pit is formed in my stomach, and suddenly my hand is encased by Jack’s.

“You’re almost to the finish line,” his forehead briefly touches mine, and mine stays warm even after Tav opens his door and he climbs out, bringing me with him by his hand. Jack pulls me close to him and smiles that stupid paparazzi smiles directly into their predatory lenses. I try the same, but it isn’t as easy as it was with the party, and I end up shielding my eyes from the bright flashes as he pulls me into the hotel. Two employees hold the doors open as he spins me and dips me before the cameras, pressing his lips against mine. I wrap my arms around his neck—mostly to keep from falling flat on the ground—and then I’m suddenly upright again, being guided by Jack to our elevator as the flashes continue incessantly behind us.


	15. Bonding Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Cass spend some quality time together.

I can hardly suppress my grin as Cassandra and I ascend to the top floors. I feel the slightest twinge of impropriety at using the job as an excuse to kiss her, but each time she’d kissed my face at the gala I’d started to think of nothing else, and while she was pulling the gaze of every man she passed I realized that the photo op I’d planned to serve as her alibi would work just as well as an announcement to the city’s underworld factions. I’m particularly concerned about Zhao and Daumier, who would happily do things to Cassandra that would make Viktoria’s final hours look like child’s play.

By the time Cassandra had departed with Newman, I’d resolved to send the clearest message possible. A complete falsehood, sure, but still a message that will make others think twice before making her a target. At the very least, their distorted views of women will buy her time before they consider the possibility that she’s on the job rather than in my bed.

If, on the other hand, a war is incited or they discover the nature of her job, these photos will make her a prime target. My grin falters until I realize that Cassandra still hasn’t removed her hand from my grip, and my lips curve with a renewed purpose.

When the elevator doors open to Cassandra’s suite, she surprises me by pulling me— _perhaps she hadn’t forgotten about our hands_ —out of the elevator. She stops just before her bedroom door and turns away from me, pulling her long hair to the side.

_I wonder if I can kiss her neck. For the mission._

I inwardly sigh. _You idiot. There_ is _no mission._

She glances back at me, “Can you help me unzip this god-awful dress? I’m going to shower and change. Are you going to change as well? I was thinking we could have some of that overpriced liquor to celebrate.”

I try to prevent myself from overreacting, but I’m hit with a sudden urge to grab her shoulders and shake her, demanding “Who are you and what have you done with Cassandra?”

Instead, I grab the impossibly small zipper of her gown and pull it down, trying not to bore into her with my eyes as more and more of her back is exposed. To distract myself, I gently pull her hair back and begin removing the knife, her braid, and the small flowers.

“No,” I finally answer. “I’ll just wait for you out here.”

“Then I’ll try to be quick,” she sniffs her bodice and cringes. “Still smells like that perv’s cologne.”

After she closes the door to her room and I can hear the water begin to run, I go to the liquor cabinet, grateful that our rooms are nigh identical, and pull out two glasses and a scotch from the highest shelf. Unlike in my room, Cassandra’s liquor cabinet is almost entirely untouched, except for one bottle of cheap tequila on the bottom shelf. So cheap, in fact, that it cannot be found throughout the entire hotel.

_Where did she get this?_

Closing the cabinet, I pour two glasses and bring them both to the coffee table, setting hers down in front of the plush chair that looks slightly more used than the other, and leaning back to sip my own while I wait for Cassandra to return.

Cassandra has been acting unusual all day, ever since her silent breakfast with Misha. _What did he say to her?_

Until I understood what this change in behavior meant, I could hardly guess what Misha had told Cassandra to make her so…different. She’d avoided me for most of the day, then turned out to be capable of delivering an Emmy-worthy performance and Navy Seal levels of lethality, and now she seemed to have her own…motivation. _She’d_ invited _me_ for drinks. She appears to have reached some previously unexplored level of relaxation, and I’m completely lost.

I’m in the midst of a tornado of thoughts—the primary theme of which appears to be _Oh my god, what if I’ve just turned her into a monster and she enjoys murder,_ and the many variations of the same line of consideration—when she appears in the doorway, wearing dark-green, silky pajamas.

I’m thrown for another loop when her eyes light up at the sight of the glass on the table and she sighs a soft “Thank you,” on her way to settle into her chair.

“You seem…different.” I mention, anticipating a roll of her eyes or a blank stare, but instead her plush lips that I had the pleasure of making so much contact with this evening tilt into a grin that turns my brain into scrambled eggs.

In a seductive intonation I never would have guessed was in her repertoire, she leans toward me and murmurs, “ _Good_ different, or _bad_ different?”

I think I choke on the scotch.

_This feels like a trap._

I stare at her dumbly for several seconds and she sinks back into her chair, cradling the glass of scotch in both hands as though it’s a steaming cup of tea.

I’ve apparently taken too long to respond, because she starts again, “I feel different. When I first arrived here, I felt completely hopeless, like there was no reason to go on.”

As if I could forget.

“But now I feel like…there’s still something that I can do before I die.”

I learn quickly that Cassandra hasn’t finished throwing me for a loop when she unfurls herself and walks the length of the table to pluck my glass from my hand and set it down with hers on the table. She, in all her pajama-clad glory, proceeds to gracefully descend onto my lap where she wraps her arms loosely around my neck and leans into my ear.

Her warm breath spreads an electric shock through my nervous system as she whispers, “Thank you, Jack, for helping me see the possibilities.”

My brain is mush, or putty, and I can barely focus on anything besides her rosy lips gently pressing against my cheek, and then firmer against my jaw before she pulls away to make eye contact. I have no idea what I must look like, but it must not be the absolute confusion that I’m feeling because her eyes close again before those soft lips press onto my own.

She pulls away before I even have a chance to realize what’s going on, but she doesn’t remove herself from my lap, instead electing to stretch away from me to grab the glasses, held steady only by the arm I hadn’t realize I’d wrapped in a vice grip around her waist, and she returns the glass to my hand, clinking her own against mine before taking another sip.

We don’t continue our conversation, instead sipping our liquor in an unexpectedly comfortable silence until her head presses softly onto my shoulder and I realize from the warm, even breaths tickling my neck that she’s fallen asleep. On any other night, without having suffered the most whiplash and near-heart attacks, I would have carried her to bed. Tonight, I pour the remainder of her drink into my own before setting her glass on the floor beside the chair, and I pull her tight against me, praying that her newfound optimism won’t vanish by morning.


	16. The Loopholes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass learns more about the eight factions of the city's criminal underworld.

I don’t recall going to bed last night, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I know how I got there. When I wake up, Jack is gone, and the glasses have returned to the liquor cabinet where they belong. If it weren’t for the pile of cotton-candy fabric in a heap on my bathroom floor, I might believe that I’d imagined last night.

After all of Jack’s attempts to talk me out of accepting his job offer, I was surprised that he wasn’t upset that I had actually gone through with it. Or he wasn’t last night, anyway.

I’m pleasantly surprised when Luke appears after breakfast and informs me, “Mr. Warren has invited you to observe his business dealings for the day. He has a nine o’clock appointment with Ms. Lake Hargreaves.”

Luke is fidgeting, and I wonder what on earth could drive a man who disposed of a sadist’s corpse last night to feel such obvious discomfort. I narrow my eyes at him and wave toward my bedroom, “The bathroom is the first door on the left.”

Luke looks absolutely mortified, exactly as expected, and his fidgeting increases twofold. “No, that’s not it.”

“Then what _is_ it?”

“Lake—I mean, Ms. Hargreaves. She’s head of one of the eight factions.” Oh ho? This is already gearing up to be an intriguing day.

“And what would one wear to a meeting with one of the eight factions?” I stride into my room and pull the closet door wide. Luke has moved to the doorway and is examining my clothes with more detail than I’d expect from a hulking bodyguard like Luke.

“That green one.” Luke points to a sleek, silky dress that _technically_ reaches my ankles while _technically_ exposing ninety percent of my leg through the unbelievably high slit.

I shoot him an incredulous look. “You’re joking.”

Luke looks dead serious.

“It’s so unprofessional.” I tell him as he pulls out his phone and dials a number. He’s placed it on speaker so I can hear the ringing.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

“Kelsey speaking!” A high-pitched voice chirps from the other line.

“Kelsey, it’s Luke, you’re on speaker with M. She’s wondering what she should wear to a meeting between Warren and Hargreaves.”

A squeal screeches across the line before Kelsey settles down, “Ohmygod, I picked out the _perfect_ outfit for this occasion. In her walk-in, there should be a long, green dress with spaghetti straps. The silk, not the summer one.”

Luke waves his hand as if to say _I told you so_ , and I roll my eyes and pull the dress from its hanger.

“There should be a gold and black houndstooth blazer in there,” Kelsey continues, and I search for it while she directs us which heels—gold, with a pointed toe and impossibly small heel destined to break my ankle and end my career early—and a “clutch.” Whatever the hell that’s supposed to be.

Instead, I keep my phone and keycard in the blazer as Luke and I head down to the thirteenth floor.

“You can say it. I won’t be upset.” I assure him.

He leans in and whispers, “I told you so” right as the elevator doors slide open, revealing the long hallway made from that same reflective shade of black that encompasses the entire floor.

“Well, so long,” Luke salutes me as he presses the “door close” button. I can tell because the doors close with suspicious efficiency.

_What the hell?_

I wonder if Lake Hargreaves is so fearsome as to scare off even Luke, Jack’s longest companion. When I step into the office, I realize that no, he’s not, he just wanted to leave me to this scene all on my own.

When I open the office door, I step back into the hallway and check the slim watch I’ve buckled to my wrist.

9:00 a.m.

Yep, right on time.

“M!” Jack calls, right as I open the door to return to the room. He must have thought that I’d want to turn around and make a swift exit from the sight of surprisingly young and nubile Lake Hargreaves sitting on his desk, holding him by his tie and leaning her face to his. When I enter, Jack immediately stands, yanking loose Hargreaves’s hold on his tie and causing her to whirl around to examine the intruder. The angle provides me an excellent visual of her ample cleavage—I can’t even begin to imagine how ample her cleavage looked from Jack’s field of vision.

Instead of looking embarrassed or upset, Lake examines me like a slide under a microscope. She even peels herself from Jack’s desk and walks over to me, bringing her face only inches away as she looks me up and down before she lets out a slow whistle.

“I thought it was the dress, but damn, you’ve really done well for yourself this time,” she tells Jack. Focusing her attention on me, she holds out her arm, using the other to brush her black hair to her back, giving me the exact understanding of how ample her cleavage looks from the front. “Lake Hargreaves, at your service.”

I take her hand. “M. Nice to meet you.”

Lake returns her attention to Jack, presumably continuing their conversation from before I had arrived. “We can’t just let Zhao get away with this. That’s _two_ girls I’ve lost to him, and—”

“Lake, give me a moment,” Jack intervenes, walking to me and pressing something into my hand. He lowers his forehead against mine and softly murmurs, so quiet I’m _certain_ Hargreaves can’t hear, “You have full access now. Be vigilant.”

When he parts from me, I nod, tucking the small USB into to pocket of my blazer.

Then Jack turns to Hargreaves and states, “My apologies. Continue.”

Lake Hargreaves glances between us, then apparently abandons her original conversation. “You’re all over Page Six, you know.” After a nod from Jack confirming his awareness of our Page Six status—while I make a mental reminder to ask Luke what Page Six is and to find out more—she resumes. “Two girls. I _know_ Zhao is responsible, I just can’t _prove_ it. I’m asking you as my ally to help me _._ ”

My interest hits sky high. Lost girls. Asking for help. My gaze shifts to Jack, who is already staring at me.

“Lake, really, I want to help, but I can’t just start a war without hard evidence. The fallout would be disastrous for everyone involved.”

Hargreaves face flashes mutinous for a moment. “How _dare_ you? We agreed that this peace would _only_ last if Zhao and Daumier stuck to their own turf, and now that they’re breaking the rules of the engagement, you’re just letting them off, scot free? _Fuck you_ , Jack.”

“Lake, listen to what I’m telling you. I can’t start a war without _hard evidence._ If you’re so certain that Zhao is responsible, then he must have left some. Find me that evidence, you’ll have your war.”

Hargreaves hisses out a breath, and I move as close as I can between the two without giving away my perception of her as an outright threat. “I promised those women a safe place to work, and now I have Zhao picking them off one by one. You’re a _coward_ if you let him get away with this. Have you completely forgotten your own mother?”

I barely manage to maintain my demeanor when Jack slams his palms down—loudly—which makes Hargreaves jump.

“Hard. Evidence.” He seethes, lifting his finger and pointing to the door. “Get it. And get out.”

Hargreaves huffs indignantly but makes a swift exit from the room.

The moment the door clicks into place, Jack is there to turn the deadbolt before he turns to me.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, looking me over as though I’d have open wounds or something.

“I’m fine.” I reply, staring at the door. “What was that?”

Jack sighs. “Exactly what it sounded like. Lake is one of the eight—” I don’t bother to tell him that Luke already informed me, “—and she’s responsible for the only legitimate sex work in the city. She has serious—and constant— problems with Zhao and Daumier, who are responsible for ninety nine percent of the sex trafficking in the city.”

“Sex trafficking?” I repeat, as though the words are foreign. Jack casts me a look that assures me that his views on their work is not dismissive.

“When I took over for Misha, I tried to run them out and failed. They have infinitely more resources than the gambling, narcotics, and legitimate sex work industries do in the city. They’re the ultimate power brokers, and they’re willing to do whatever and use whoever they want to accomplish their goals.”

I feel a shudder in my spine, and I pray it doesn’t find its way through my body.

“Now, Lake is convinced that Zhao has taken two women under her protection. This would constitute a _serious_ breach of our agreements with Zhao. But her women are also largely transient, and I can’t just start a war if some of her employees decided to hit the road without notice. The first time I tried to take on Zhao and Daumier, I had no allies and no real power. Even my own followers were loosely dedicated, unwilling to go to the lengths necessary to drive them out. By the time I’d had alliances and armies who could take them on, we’d negotiated the city-wide agreement not to attack each other. _None of us_ want to be the first to break that agreement and bring bloodshed back to the city, but Lake is _convinced_ that Zhao is involved. If she’s so certain, she should at least be able to explain _why_ , but she refuses.”

I nod, although I feel firmly on the side of Hargreaves for this one. Zhao and Daumier should be stripped of their power, regardless of their compliance with whatever bullshit agreement had been forged between the factions.

Now that he’s done explaining, I can feel his focus entirely on me as he asks, “I’m serious. How are you feeling?”

I shrug. Honestly, I feel like he should join Hargreaves and tear those traffickers limb from limb, but I settle with a simple, “I feel fine, thank you for asking.”


	17. Irrevocable Errors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass learns more about crime in the city

The rest of the day ticked by like sludge in an hourglass. Lake Hargreaves had clearly been the most exciting event planned for Jack, as the remainder of his meetings were primarily hotel related. Who knew that it was so difficult to run a hotel _and_ a crime syndicate? Not this girl.

While Jack handled increasingly banal meetings with the hotel managers, my mind was entirely focused on the small USB in my jacket pocket. Even now, it feels like a hot coal about to burn through the fabric. The files on the primary network are thorough, no question about it, but they’re missing the most important information. Moreover, I’m desperate to find out everything I can on the other figureheads I’d learned of today: Hargreaves, Zhao, Daumier—one of whom I’d already been acquainted with.

When I return to my suite, I find that there’s a laptop sitting atop the kitchen island, decorated with a satin ribbon in the same sickly pastels as last night’s dress.

 _Uproarious, Jack._ I think with a roll of my eyes. _Where_ do _you get your sense of humor?_

There’s also a note, which reads:

_Password: Password._

Regular James Bond, that boss of mine.

After logging in, and after quickly changing the password to _anything_ more secure, I enter the USB and begin searching.

Grant and Lisa Schubert, who I’d anticipated as my next moonlighting victims, are absent from the files. This is unsurprising—their names hadn’t flagged in the lower security files, and I know they value their suburban life to get themselves on the list of an organized crime lord…boss.

Next, I search for Tom Russel—the one responsible for the chain of events that led me to Jack. Somehow, the man had wracked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debt between Jack and Orla O’Shea—another one of the eight figureheads of the city, and the head of the local Irish mob. I found it surprisingly feminist of a hereditary mob to allow a woman to take charge, but there were rumors that she had murdered her own father for the position. If it hadn’t been equal before, well, it certainly is now.

This information only makes me more curious about Tommy boy. I haven’t laid eyes on my stepfather in the last decade, and apparently in the meantime he’d managed to obtain such high debts from two of the most dangerous lenders in the city, then he’d found a way to evade the collectors of both Jack Caine Warren _and_ Orla O’Shea? From what I remember about him, I can hardly believe that it’s possible. I can also hardly believe that he’d been lent _so much_ money. The man’s credit score should be in the negatives, not enough to assure even the stupidest of lenders into giving him hundreds of thousands of dollars. He owes O’Shea more than three times what he owes Jack, and I suppress a shudder to think of being taken by O’Shea instead. In that case, I would definitely be dead—or wishing I were.

I notice that someone has deleted my name from his file, probably to protect me from any future Ramo’s who try to collect on Thomas Russel.

I close his file and move on to Lake Hargreaves. I expect her, as a figurehead, to have one of the most thorough files in the drive. I quickly find out that I’m mistaken—the file contains almost no valuable information about her. It lists her birthday, and I’m surprised at how young she really is. She’s even younger than Jack, even younger than _me_. Moreover, her syndicate was born from nothing only a few years ago. From her file, it appears that she appeared in the city four years ago and within a year she was able to protect her assets and investments against the established syndicates. Her file contains no information on her relations, frequent locations, or seemingly anything personal at all. I make a mental note to ask Jack about her later when we reconvene for dinner.

Li Wei Zhao’s file is more extensive. _Much_ more extensive. It lists more personal details than I’d ever thought a person could have, and it contains a list of every public appearance until only yesterday. I suspect that Jack has him under constant surveillance and made a copy of these files only this morning, ending my access to updates. The file also lists two dates that are crossed out. I have a feeling they have something to do with Jack being short a few hired killers. Below the dates is a note about Li Wei Zhao’s younger brother, Li Jie Zhao, which reads:

_Li Jie Zhao must be taken care of first—J._

I open Li Jie’s file and close it soon after. Whether Li Wei is better at concealing his crimes or not, there’s no question that Li Jie is a seriously demented and vile person. One who I’m not eager to learn more about anytime soon.

I notice that it’s getting late, which is just fine because I wasn’t looking forward to getting to Daumier’s file after looking at the photos in Li Jie Zhao’s file. I close the laptop and head to freshen up for dinner. Considering the number of hotel chefs who had met Jack in his office today, I assume he’s going to want to sample their updated menu options for the week, so I trade my blazer for a silvery wrap, emerging from my room just in time to see Jack emerge from the elevator. He’s abandoned his waistcoat and changed his shirt to a dark green shirt that makes my cheeks warm with the realization that we _match_.

There’s no chance he hasn’t done this on purpose.

“Just one kiss and we’re matching outfits?” I tap my still-pink fingernail against my chin. “Perhaps we’re moving too fast? Next thing you know, it’ll be matching sweaters.”

“I’m down if you are.”

I roll my eyes at him. “You already know that I most certainly am _not_.”

He shrugs. “It was worth a try. But no worries, I’ll keep taking kisses to hold me over.”

It’s my turn to shrug. “It was worth a try, Jack.”

He grins in a way that makes me feel a little bit lighter, which in turn reminds me to frown.

“Jack, why is Lake Hargreaves’s file so…empty?” I’m suspicious that he’s kept certain information out of the copies of the files he’s given me. After all, it’s already ridiculous that he’s given me so much access in such a short time. What’s to stop me from bringing the USB to the highest bidder?

Jack doesn’t hesitate in his response, which makes me reconsider my theory. “Lake is an ally. We have aligned interests and have agreed not to expend resources in the pursuit of knowledge of the other.”

“And you trust her?”

Jack meets my eyes without a lick of contemplation. “Implicitly. In fact, I’d welcome her into my highest ranks if she ever wanted to reconsider her career as Mistress of the City.”

“What if there was a conflict?”

“We’re independent entities,” he seems pensive for a moment before finishing his response, “So I suppose we would act in our independent capacities if the situation arose, but I doubt that will ever happen.”

“But the others? Do you trust any of them?”

“I trust them not to break the treaty we entered into—the first of us who violates the treaty would risk starting a war—but beyond that, no.” He pauses before adding, “There have been rumors that Zhao has become involved with arms smuggling. He’s not the only one, either. And any arms dealers are at higher risk of violating the treaty. Assuming they survive the fallout of violating the treaty, they would amass a fortune in arms sales during the resulting war. I trust them least of all, but there’s nothing that I can do without evidence that they’ve broken the treaty.”

“And taking some of Lake Hargreaves employees would constitute a breach?”

“A severe one. Lake is the most recent entry to the treaty, but she’s given the same protections. If someone breached the treaty—”

“Zhao.” I interrupt, and he nods.

“If Zhao breached the treaty by taking a single one of Lake’s employees, it would authorize her and any other members of the treaty to declare war against Zhao, and no one would be able to assist Zhao.”

“But there’s no guarantee that others won’t join him.” I mention, and he nods solemnly.

“I think that—if we did invoke the terms of the treaty—Daumier is likely to side with Zhao. They are direct competitors, but they are also universally abhorred, which makes them allies, in a way. If we attempt to invoke the terms of the treaty without evidence? I don’t know that we could survive the fallout.”

This is bad news.

Very bad news.

Even worse than the possibility of a complete war between the most dangerous organized crime syndicates within the city is the knowledge that I’ve already broken the treaty, and Jack has no idea.


	18. Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little bit darker for our main duo.  
> Cass delivers bad news to Jack.

I have no idea what to do with this knowledge. I’m _certain_ that “I didn’t know” is not going to be enough to satisfy a group of people who torture people over financial contracts. I have no one to ask, either—not when my actions have endangered both Jack and the Pantheon. Oh yeah, and everyone else in the city. For the first time, I regret my lack of relationships. _What I wouldn’t give for some advice right now…_

I first think of Misha, who seemed ready enough to help me when I’d stolen Jack’s car to go to some off-the-clock charity work, but I quickly suppress that thought because I don’t even _want_ to know what Misha would do if he found out that I’d (1) ignored his advice, which lead to me (2) endangering his sole living child, and (3) endangering his entire life’s legacy.

I then think of Katie, who is undoubtedly sill bartending without a care of the criminal underworld in her pretty little head. That idea is also quickly quashed—after all, what would I say? “ _Hi Katie, so actually I was abducted by a mob boss who ended up saving my life because I’d been lying to you about my plans and had actually hoped to kill myself that last night I’d seen you. Anyway, I’m a murderer now, going on serial killer, and I really need your advice because I might have started a war. Oops!_ ”

“M?” Jack’s voice startles me out of my panic, and his brows are drawn together in concern, so I can tell I must have been out of it for a while. “Do you not like the food…?”

I glance down at the coq au vin in front of me. I haven’t even touched it. I briefly recall Jack asking what I’d wanted and half in my thoughts I’d told him to order for me.

I pick up my fork and knife and slice off a piece of chicken, bringing it to my lips. “It’s really good.”

This seems to puzzle Jack even more, and I remember that “It’s really good” isn’t something I say. Jack doesn’t press further, which is probably only thanks to my out-of-character giddiness from last night. Killing Driscoll had been like suddenly seeing in only black and white only to discover color. Now I was already sinking into dread. Before, I’d experienced only numbness and self-hatred, but now that I’d discovered all that the world had to offer, I had something to lose, which apparently resulted in more negative feelings as well as positive ones. _Great_.

I watch as Jack takes a bite of his beef bourguignon, staring as his lips and remembering how grateful I’d felt last night that he’d introduced me to this world of color. Now I could feel the color dripping from the walls, leeching back to wherever it came.

If there was anything I’d learned since arriving at The Acropolis, it was that Jack takes responsibility for his actions. He took responsibility for my abduction even though it was his stupid henchman who had made the mistake, and he took responsibility for me just because I’d almost died under his roof, even though it was technically my fault also.

If Jack could take responsibility for actions of others, I was assured of two things. First, I can take responsibility for my own actions. Second, Jack would take responsibility for my massive fuck up. And it might get him killed. I may as well have given him the kiss of death, but there was still a chance to undo it. I just had to hope that it wasn’t too late.

“Jack,” I say, taking a sip of the overpriced wine in front of me to steady my resolve. When Jack meets my eyes, I swallow before continuing. “You need to fire me.”

Jack’s gray eyes widen, and I know I’ve completely caught him off guard. _Maybe I should have tried to ease into this? Dammit, Cass, can’t you get anything right?_ Then I notice his knuckles are white on his silverware. “What did you say?”

I’ve already messed this up. I remove the napkin I didn’t remember placing on my lap and set it over my barely-touched food before standing. “I’m sorry, this was the wrong place and time to bring this up. I’m going back upstairs, but please join me when you’re finished. We need to talk.”

Jack meticulously sets his silverware on the table, then removes his own napkin and stands as well. “I’m finished.”

_Oh no._

The enamored Jack from last night is gone, and I can feel some dark emotion emanating from him now, but I’m too unfamiliar with emotions to know what it is, only that it sends a cold chill up my spine which motivates me to move twice as quickly to the elevator. I’m almost hoping that I’ll get there first and the doors will close, leaving him with time—seconds, at least—to step feeling…whatever _that_ is.

Instead, he’s right on my heels, and I can feel him watching me as we exit to the main lobby and cross to the private elevator. I’m standing further away, but I can feel _waves_ of whatever that is coming off of him.

_Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck._

When the doors open, I make straight for the liquor cabinet, whispering, “Why don’t I get us something to drink?”

I barely make it two feet before Jack’s hand closes on my wrist and he pulls me around. My breath catches in my throat as I take in his face.

He. Is. Pissed.

I tug at my wrist and find that it’s like yanking on metal cuffs—no give.

“ _What_ did you say?” Jack hisses, and I want to back up but I can’t budge an inch.

 _Take responsibility, Cass_.

I straighten up, and meet his eyes, trying not to flinch away at the disturbing energy he’s emanating. “You have to fire me. Or…I quit.”

Jack barks out a laugh and I’m reminded that he really _is_ a crime lord. _Why did I think he wouldn’t hurt me? Stupid, stupid Cass._

“What is this?” He demands, yanking me closer by the risk until his menacing visage is only inches from my own. “Did someone else try to buy you off?”

I’m briefly stunned. _Was_ that _what he thought was going on?_

Actually, it made sense. He’d told me that he’d lost others in bids to his targets—namely Zhou—but the idea of me turning was so offensive that my mouth had fallen open.

“You think that I would work for someone _else?_ Who, Jack?”

His grip is nearly punishing on my wrist. Any tighter and I might come away with a bruise.

“Then what the _fuck_ , Cassandra?” He growled, and I felt the blood leaving my face.

 _Oh my god, what if he actually kills me?_ Any ideas I’d had to tell him that I’d broken the treaty flew out the window. But I still couldn’t give up my revenge, and I couldn’t let him pay the price for my actions. _How to get out? Think, Cass, think…_

“I thought I was only being kept prisoner until my mental health was stable?” I want to sound strong, but my voice is a breathless whisper.

“ _Clearly_ your mental health is still in question, since you think you’re stable enough to leave after you just _murdered someone_.”

I gasp. “That’s unfair. You can’t hold that against me when you’re the one who told me to do it.”

Jack raises an eyebrow as if to say _‘so what?’_ “I decide what’s fair in The Acropolis.”

“Jack, you said I would be free to go.” Even I can hear the betrayal in my voice—and fear—as I pull futilely at his crushing grip.

“I can’t trust you to leave, knowing what you know.” He says simply, and I contemplate how much worse things will be if I resort to force to escape. He must read it on my face, because he smiles with flat eyes and says, “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

I’ve been doing things wrong left and right lately, so I decide to give it a shot anyway, using years of training to break his grip and twist into him to get the leverage to throw him. If I can get him unconscious, I can be gone before anyone knows better—

Instead, when I twist toward him, he wraps an arm around my waist from behind, picking me up from the floor. I move to use my weight to get him to release me, but his other hand grips my throat and I go rigid. He could kill me with force in exactly where Misha taught me, and him, I realize now that it’s too late.

Trying to keep my voice steady, I tell him, “Jack, I’m not going to tell anyone anything.”

“No. You’re not.” His voice is cold and certain. I wonder if he really is going to kill me. If so, then I guess there’s actually not much added risk in telling him.

“Jack, let me explain—” but my words are cut off when he squeezes my throat.

“Clearly you’re not feeling well, and I won’t hear another word of this nonsense.” Jack brings us to my room, then releases my waist. I plan to finish my sentence when he releases my throat, but instead he holds up something that reflects the light, and I realize it’s my silver wrap. Even worse, he’s moving it toward my mouth.

When he has to release my throat for a moment, I cry, “Please, don’t, just listen—” but then the wrap is in my mouth, muffling what I have to say. I’m so frustrated that I can feel tears pricking my eyes as his hand returns to my throat and he pulls something from his pocket. My eyes are saucers when I see the handcuffs, and I renew my struggles until his grip on my throat is punishing.

He guides me to the bed and lays me down on it while I glare teary daggers at him, which he completely ignores as he pulls each of my hands to the headboard before cuffing my wrists, a bar behind the cuffs to prevent me from moving.

He meets my eyes again with unfeeling eyes as he says, “I’m going to contact Dr. Mainlove to come sedate you.”

I scream at him through the gag. I can’t _believe_ I kissed this asshole. I pull at the cuffs and they cut into my skin, which makes him hesitate for a moment.

“Cassandra, I know you’re angry, but please believe that I’m doing this for your own good. Even if you feel okay right now, there’s no way you’ve recovered from your depression in only two days.”

_Easy to say what you want when the only person who could argue with you is bound and gagged, you asshole._

I think that he’s going to leave me here, but he calls Dr. Mainlove from my room, and after tense minutes of him watching me glare at him in silence, Dr. Mainlove comes into the room looking irritated, as though this is an inconvenience for her.

 _I hope it is if you go through with this._ I hope she can hear my thoughts. Just in case she can, I add, _Bitch._

When the needle slides into my arm, I fight to stay awake but in only a few seconds the world goes black.


	19. The Ups, and the Downs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack calls his dad to get him out of a jam

I exhale with relief when Cassandra’s head falls to the side and her body goes limp. Dr. Mainlove lets out a huff and says, “That should keep her out for a few hours, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to wake up with vengeance on her mind—”

She silences herself after looking at my face. I don’t even know how I look right now. I don’t even know what to _think_ right now. I feel as though I just spent three days on a roller coaster that comes to an end in a spectacular crash.

On one hand, sane people did not kill people and get so flirty afterwards. Sure, I’d met enough people who get off on murder, but Cassandra distinctly does not strike me as one of them. In this, I feel relieved for noticing signs of her mental health wavering and preventing her from leaving the safety of The Acropolis while my enemies have now been made aware of her. It’s against the treaty to attack family, but that doesn’t mean that she’d be safe. Zhao was already pressing boundaries, and if what Lake had said is true, then there’s no guarantee that Cassandra would be safe outside these walls.

On the other hand, I’d only spent brief moments with her at the cabin, not enough to determine if she really had improved during her time with Misha. If she really was better, then I’d just _seriously_ violated her trust in a way that she might never forgive. At this thought, my stomach twists and I move to release her gag.

But what if she _had_ turned sides? It was only today that I’d granted her our high-security files, and only today that she’d become so curious about the others involved in the treaty. And after that, she’d asked to be fired? _No_ , she’d told me I _had_ to fire her. Perhaps I’d been too soft with her. The strange spell she had over me had clearly compromised my leadership around her, and she felt that she could get away with too much. Leaving with our highest guarded intel having been made available to her? It screamed _betrayal_. But we’d spent the past week in a cabin without cellular reception, and then she’d been with me for the rest of the time.

Except for that large gap of time after we’d returned.

Had Misha told her something that had made her want to change alliances after her training had finished? They’d had that strange morning, and his car had been taken somewhere. Had she gone to meet another potential employer? Before I’d been aware of it, the phone was ringing in my ear, and only two rings, Misha’s voice came through the speaker. “Calling so soon? I have such a devoted son. He just can’t let me retire in peace.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Did you tell her anything that would make her want to align herself with another group?”

A long silence was his response, until Misha asked, “What is going on?”

“I have Cassandra sedated and handcuffed to her bed.” I cringe at the words. I hope she’s out of her mind again, or she is never going to forgive me for this.

But what if it’s worse? What if she’s a traitor?

_I’ve given her access to all of the files._

Could I eliminate her? _Would_ I?

“Listen to me, and listen to me _now_ , Jack,” Misha’s voice was severe on the other end of the line. “Unlock those handcuffs. Start working on the best apology you’ve ever given in your life. She is no traitor.”

I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. _Not a traitor. Good._

But now comes the question of her sanity. I tell him flatly, “She’s told me that she’s quitting.”

Another silence stretches before us, and I amend, “She told me that I have to fire her. Or she quits.”

“Jack, you need to leave her in someone else’s care for a bit. I need your help with something. I think that the result will help answer some of your questions.”

I look at Cassandra’s limp body and the gnawing in my stomach increases at the idea of leaving her in someone else’s care. If it had been anyone but me, she would have been able to take them down and make a quick exit. Who knows how much she’s learned from Thomas Russell about evading me? “I can’t risk leaving her with anyone else.”

Misha sighs, then I hear the familiar chime of keys. “Very well, I’ll be there soon.”

* * * * * * * *

Dr. Mainlove returns not long after with an IV drip and Misha arrives not long after that. _Had he been in the city when I called?_

It’s only after Dr. Mainlove has finished hooking up Cassandra’s intravenous sedative that I feel okay to leave her. I still feel tense, but I remind myself that Dr. Mainlove knows the penalties if anything should happen to Cassandra, and that it won’t be too long away from her.

Misha meets me in the server room, already reading a police report on the screen of one of several computers in here.

“You should let her leave,” Misha says without looking at me as he finishes reading the report. I hear a cracking sound and look down to find my thumb has cracked the screen on my phone. I slide it into my pocket. I can’t afford to ruin it because I need it in case something goes wrong upstairs.

“It’s too late. She knows too much; I gave her the high security files today.”

Misha sucks in a breath, which makes a muscle in my jaw tic. I feel as though he thinks I’m stupid for having done it, and now I’m wondering it myself.

“Come, look at this,” Misha tells me as he pushes the monitor toward me. It’s a police report from yesterday morning. Homicide. Alleyway.

“What is this?” I ask, not seeing anything standing out. Misha skips the report and brings up crime scene photos. A corpse in a coat, lying in its own blood. An envelope is grasped in its hand. A few images later, the envelope is opened up, a photo of the note itself is next:

_Hey Lou,_

_Miss me?_

_\--Em._

“What. Is. This?” I grate through my teeth. While Cassandra was under the care of the psychopathic Dr. Mainlove, we were browsing the crime scene photo of a John Doe and reading love letters? Pass.

“This note. It’s from Cassandra.” Misha gestures to the screen and my mind goes blank. Whatever he’s putting down, I am _not_ picking up. He sighs and explains, “The night before you left, she took your car. She came back early in the morning with blood on her.”

My ability to speak has left my body. I gape at the photos, then lean over Misha to start tapping the arrow keys so I can get a better look at the photos. From the angle, I can tell the man had his throat slit. He looks to be middle class, with a long coat and wire-frame glasses. “Who is this?”

Misha shakes his head. “I don’t know. Whoever it is, I don’t think he’s Lou. But that note—that…way of killing. It’s personal.” He angles his head to look at me. “I don’t think that you’ve been betrayed. At least not for another group. Most likely, this is something she’s dealing with on her own.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this when you found out about it?” I demand, waving at the bloody photo on the screen with incredulity.

When Misha shrugs, I feel like I’m going to burst blood vessels in my head. I’m back on the roller coaster for round two.


	20. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A potential traitor?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to go back to the more descriptive style I was using earlier on, but I've also gotten really amped to put more of the plot in so I'm really battling with myself over what to do.

I was immediately filled with the desire to march to Cassandra’s room and order that she answer my questions, but when I attempt exactly that and Dr. Mainlove airily dismisses the notion and says, “That’s not how sedatives work. I can’t just wake her up. It has to leave her system.”

I return in quick time to Misha, who has been printing out the police report and photos, as well as the report we have on her father. When he hands the documents to me, I read through them as quickly as possible, and I’m reminded of the huge omission. Thomas Russel doesn’t have Cassandra listed anywhere in his file. There’s no record of him with any Cassandra or any Nichols.

Where had Ramo gotten that photo of Thomas Russel with her mother? Perhaps it could lead me to any information on Cassandra herself?

I call Ramo, but don’t receive a response. He’s fired. Even with my appreciation that he’d unwittingly interrupted her suicide attempt, he’d failed one too many times. So I call his supervisor, who notifies me that Ramo hasn’t been seen in _weeks_. His supervisor is also fired…after he finds Ramo.

I feel as though my thoughts are boiling in my head, each one breaking the surface only to disappear. I’d just accepted that Cassandra had no file. I’d just accepted that she’d thrown away her past and had started anew. I had no reason to question the files, or Ramo, but now he was missing and had the only connection between Cassandra and Russel. The only piece of Cassandra’s life before I’d met her, and it wasn’t even a sure thing. Now to find out that Cassandra has some sort of personal vendetta fueling her bloodlust? I can’t fit any of the pieces together.

I think I can feel a headache coming on.

I call Tav and tell him to give me any information he has on Ramo, which is infuriatingly not much. I’d hired Ramo. He’d worked his way up in good time and had only been blatantly bad at his job when he’d abducted Cassandra outside of her home. He was the only one with a photo of who I assumed was Cassandra’s mother with Thomas Russel, and had grabbed her on the very day she intended to commit suicide? The coincidences were starting to add up, but to what? I can’t figure any of this out, and my mind is chaos as I try to understand the events of the last few days, and the time I first met Cassandra.

What had been Ramo’s goal with bringing her to me? What if I’d actually tortured her? What if she’d succeeded in the bathroom attempt? It seemed so…unpredictable that I couldn’t figure out his plans for her. There was no way for him to plan my preternatural obsession with her, but he’d somehow obtained a photo even my sources couldn’t get a hold of and shown up on the very day she’d hoped to die.

And what did “Em” mean in the note? She’d told Gregory Newman that her name was Emma, so perhaps both were plays on her middle name, or my name for her within the organization? And who is Lou?

Most importantly, what does any of this have to do with her wanting to leave? Did she think that she couldn’t tell me that she wanted to do her own thing? Hell, I don’t care what she does with her time off. _Lie._ I don’t care if she goes around killing anyone who bullied her in elementary school. _True._ Did she think I would be upset? Quite the opposite—it would mean my struggle with myself for having offered her the job would be meaningless; I’d no longer corrupted an innocent, but instead had hired someone who was willing to do the same work on her own time, without pay. When I realize that this is the best excuse I can come up with for her asking to leave, nausea sweeps through my stomach as I remember how I’d responded. I’d been blindsided by her statement, but instead of listening to her explanation, I’d blatantly violated our agreement before laying hands on her and making this a legitimate kidnapping rather than a psychiatric hold. I can no longer tell convince myself that what I’d done was for her own good.

I dread what she’ll say when she wakes because I’ll know that I deserve it. Even worse, I can’t bring myself to regret it. The idea of her hating me sends my mind into a panic, but I would rather have Cassandra hating me here than away from me and with a bounty on her head.

Still, I am not looking forward to the consequences of my actions.

Misha has left to distribute the details of John Doe to our investigators in the hopes that they will be able to uncover the identity of John Doe or Lou before the police.

Moreover, I need to make plans for this incident to be _buried_. No witnesses, no police report, no crime scene photos, no note, and—the most difficult and expensive to pull off—no body. Luke has been placed in charge while I deal with this, which has become my top priority.

Kelsey has come by once, and from the pitying look she gave me on her way out, I can tell she knows I messed up too, which makes me feel even more incompetent. If I had just called _anyone_ before I’d had Cassandra sedated, they would have been able to talk me out of it and we would have been able to salvage things. She would have been angry, but not however angry she’ll be when she comes to after being sedated.

I curse myself again because we’d been making progress. Not only had she been showing interest and enjoyment in things, but she’d been so affectionate as well. Now it felt like a week ago that she’d sit across my lap in her pajamas, dusting kisses across my face, rather than only a day. Will I ever get that from her again? I doubt it.

 _Why_ had I been so angry? She’d asked to leave, and I’d lost myself. Now that I’d had time to reflect, I could see dozens of other options I could have gone with before _handcuffing_ and _sedating_ her. I could have had her followed and watched. I could have listened to her concerns and assured her that her side projects weren’t a deal-breaker. I could have called Kelsey and had her act as a mediator so we could resolve it without _exactly_ this scenario. I could have waited for her to return to her room first, so I could gather my wits and not be a cruel idiot to her. I could have lied and said that it was okay, then bided my time to figure out a solution. _Ah, here’s all that regret I’ve been waiting for._

The problem was that I hadn’t done any of those things, and now she’s lying unconscious on her bed while I wait for her to wake up and give me a piece of her mind, but that’s not what happens.

Cassandra wakes up and doesn’t even budge. She doesn’t check her hands for the cuffs that were removed hours ago, she doesn’t look around the room, she doesn’t glare at me or scream or even move. She just stares blankly in front of her.

The regret inside me swells to tsunami levels, and with each second that ticks by, the gripping in my chest gets worse. This is worse than I’d even considered. I hadn’t even considered this. I’d expected her to rouse with the same frustration as when she’d been sedated. The same screaming and thrashing and glaring that I’d prepared myself for dozens of times while I waited for her to wake up.

This is so much worse. This is even worse than the first time I’d spoken to her, after she’d attempted suicide in the bathroom. At least that time she’d been _talking_.

Although I briefly feel as though I’m going to lose my balance when my blood leaves my face, I remain standing and watch her for over an hour, during which she doesn’t show any changes until her eyelids flutter close and even breathing indicates that she’s fallen asleep.


	21. Fear of the Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack begins looking into Cass's background.

“And you’re _sure_ that she wasn’t just ignoring you?” Dr. Mainlove asks, earning herself a withering glare. She raises her palms in surrender and says, “Okay, okay, I believe you. It sounds like she’s catatonic.”

“Make her non-catatonic.” I gesture at Cassandra’s sleeping form and feel a tightening in my throat. I swallow it down, which eases the pressure only slightly.

Dr. Mainlove is shaking her head. “It doesn’t work like that. The most likely treatment would be electroshock, and I can guarantee you she’s not going to get over that, even if it _does_ work.”

Kelsey is sitting on Cassandra’s bed, holding her hand while glaring furiously at me. I would be upset—she hadn’t been so angry with me earlier, when she’d thought Cassandra would be angry with me, but now that Cassandra was checked out of this world I could tell she believed I’d done something terrible to Cassandra but knew she couldn’t confront me about it. I _had_ done something terrible, but it was exactly as I’d told them. I’d restrained her and then sedated her when she’d tried to leave. Clearly, Kelsey didn’t believe me, and I didn’t blame her. I deserved any anger I was getting right now; I just wish it were the _right_ anger from the _right_ person.

After notifying everyone of Luke’s position as interim boss and informing both Luke and Kelsey about her current condition, Kelsey had posted herself beside Cassandra, despite the fact they’d spent only a few minutes together since meeting.

While I watched over Cassandra, Misha was gathering any information he can on Thomas Russell and Ramo Moretti and when I see that he’s calling me, I pick up immediately, expecting something that will finally make some of this make sense. Instead, what he says chills the blood in my veins.

“Their records have been erased. There’s nothing for either one of them. And it looks like Moretti erased his own file in our records as well. All we have on him is what’s in the high security files,” _which he couldn’t access,_ “most of which appears to be false anyway.”

“You checked everywhere? With Morrison?” _Our police contact_. “With Cline?” _Our court contact._

“Of course I did. Jack, there’s nothing there.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and take several deep breaths as I fight an increasingly losing battle not to fly off the handle.

“What the fuck is going on?”

In a gruff voice that indicates rare exhaustion from Misha, he replies, “I’d like to know the same. Keep your phone on you, I’ll call you if I find anything.”

He hangs up, and my phone is already buzzing again. Mariella Ramirez, one of my investigators. I’d woken her up for overtime researching the police case. The same one Tav is currently working on erasing.

“Mr. Warren, I have identified the man from the crime scene photos.” Her soft accent is almost as soothing as the good news she’s finally brought. “His name is Terrence Driscoll. I’ve dispatched a copy of all available records for him, it should be arriving shortly.”

“Thank you,” I tell her before ending the call and returning the phone to my pocket. “Kelsey, someone is about to come up the elevator with files. I need you to get them and bring them back here.”

She shoots me another furious look but releases Cassandra’s hand and quickly exits the room.

Dr. Mainlove has finished setting up all the equipment Cassandra had been attached to after her suicide attempt, and the consistent noise chirping from the heartbeat monitor is like a metronome calming my frustration and confusion.

“You can leave now,” I tell her, and she grabs her bag and takes off without another word. I move to the door and lock it behind her, pulling out my phone and dialing a number I don’t often use.

“I’m surprised to hear from you, Jack,” Orla’s accent is always thicker when she’s been drinking, which is often. Right now, for instance.

I school myself to eerie politeness. I’ll need every ounce of her good humor to convince her to do me any favors, and I don’t need her finding out how much I need one right now or she’ll take as much as she can get from me in exchange.

“Orla, I hope my call didn’t wake you. I should have checked the time before calling.” I had checked the time actually; she and I both knew that she was regularly up all hours of the night, usually drinking with her family until the early hours of the morning—especially on a weekend.

“No problem at all. We’ve been celebrating a new addition to the family all night; I’ve just stepped into my office to take your call.”

“Congratulations, Orla.” I can hear muffled music and a crashing sound that I suspect is a newly broken bottle. _Don’t seem desperate, Jack_. “I had no intention of interrupting your festivities. Should I call back another time?”

“No, no,” Orla’s voice is slightly slurring, which is a bit of a shock considering her family’s penchant for alcohol and her unbelievably high tolerance. When I’d first taken over, I’d challenged her to a drinking contest and she’d easily drank me under the table. After my subsequent hangover, I’d never challenged her that way again. Especially when I’d seen the tabloids of her jogging at eight the next morning, looking as fresh-faced as ever.

“I’m calling because I’ve run into some problems with a debtor. My records indicate he’s one of yours as well.”

The issue with calling Orla is that she, unlike Lake, _is_ a direct competitor. Turning her on Thomas Russell’s tail could either get me what I need, or could rekindle her desire to hunt him down, leading her to horde her resources. I hear the clacking of keyboard keys and a moment of silence.

“Ah, _that_ Thomas Russell.” Orla sighed sagely. “Yes, I recall having problems with him as well, but his debt is settled.”

This is shocking news. _She’d tracked him down?_ “Do you have him, Orla?”

“No, not at all. He settled his debt personally, probably two years ago or so.” A pause. “What do you want from me, Jack?”

“He still owes me a debt, and I intend to collect on it soon. Problem is, my intel ends before he’d paid you off, apparently—”

“Say no more,” she interrupts. “Although it’s true that he’s paid off his debt to me and I agreed to do him no harm, I never agreed not to help anyone else do the honors. He’s a pest, and I’ll be glad when he’s dealt with. I’ll send a copy of my records of him sent to you within the hour. Are you at home?”

“Yes. Thank you, Orla.”

“Nothing’s free, Jack. But we can negotiate the details of your payment another time. For now, I have a celebration to get back to.”

“Of course. Enjoy the party.”

“I always do.” I can hear the smile in her voice before the call ends.

I exhale a long breath. _Finally, things are starting to go smoothly_.

I open Cassandra’s door and peer out to see Kelsey with her face buried in one of many files stacked onto a rolling cart.

“Kelsey.” My voice startles her and she nearly jumps before returning the file to the stack and wheeling the cart into Cassandra’s room.

“Boss,” she says in a low voice, as though Cassandra will hear her in her sleep. “This guy that she iced? He was seriously bad news.”

I sigh, “Kelsey, how many times have I asked you to cease talking as though we’re in a shoddy eighties movie?”

She shrugs, handing me the thickest file from the stack. It’s a criminal court folder, and I suspect most of the other files are as well, apart from the blue file I know comes from our personal information storage. I flip it open and the first page is an order dismissing all charges dated last October. The charges are listed at the bottom. Count one, rape in the first degree. Count two, kidnapping resulting in substantial bodily harm. Count three, battery with a deadly weapon.

The list went on and on. The longer it went, the more I realized the problem with the file.

“Where’s the rest of the file?” I ask, holding it up so Kelsey can see how thin it is compared to the list of charges.

“That’s all there is. I double-checked with Cline and she told me that somehow the evidence from the case had disappeared.”

I grip the file until my fingers are white. Just like Thomas Russell. Just like Ramo Moretti. And I suspect just like Cassandra Nichols. But _unlike_ the files that seemed to be wiped from existence, these files were still here. Someone had wanted Driscoll out on the street but didn’t care enough to wipe his record. _Who?_

“Ah. It starts here, Boss.” Kelsey hands me another file, and it’s similar to this one, but the charges are listed as “possession with intent to distribute, schedule one controlled substance,” and “possession of drug paraphernalia.” Kelsey explains, “This is the first one where the evidence disappeared. Seems like he was on his own until five years ago, when his charges started bouncing.”

As Kelsey said, it appears that Driscoll’s extensive record was poised to land him in prison for a great deal of time until the evidence in his cases had vanished, one after another. The most recent charge was another case of _possession with intent to distribute_ , only three months earlier. His bail had been paid in full, and the charges were dropped only a few weeks later.

Kelsey and I spend the next several hours reading through the files, but there’s nothing about Cassandra, Russell, or Moretti. Mostly the charges are drug-related, although Driscoll clearly wasn’t one to sample the merchandise. All of his drug screens were negative, even those conducted on arrest. Kelsey hadn’t been exaggerating bout Driscoll being bad news. A person who committed top tier felonies under the influence of drugs is one thing, but a person who both sells narcotics and nearly beats a woman to death after raping her without a hint of narcotics in the system? Sociopathic.

Driscoll’s files only make me more uneasy. Not only did we not find a lead about Cassandra’s connection to him, but I’d found out that whatever the connection, it wasn’t anything to look forward to finding out.


	22. Keep Your Eye on the Prize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The investigation continues.

Luke appeared, carrying Orla’s files on Thomas Russell, just as the first lights of dawn were visible through Cassandra’s windows. Atop the files was a note reading:

_Sorry for the delay. Couldn’t find anyone sober enough to drive._

_\--O._

Parts of the file were redacted, and the portions that were unredacted weren’t much more thorough than our own files on Russell. Kelsey is the first to note a difference in our intel.

“It looks like he disappeared around the same time he paid off his debts to Orla, but look, here. There’s a note about his wife.”

_Family: Wife deceased 15 yrs, heroin. No records. No other family._

Not only were all traces of Russell gone from all criminal and civil records, but apparently records of his family had been missing when Orla last updated his file as well.

“Maybe Driscoll is the one who dealt to her mom, and that’s why she wanted him dead?” Kelsey hypothesizes. It makes sense—according to this, Cassandra had only been eight years old or so when her mother had died, and Driscoll’s files evidenced that he’d been in the city at the time.

Luke’s expression is much darker when Kelsey explains everything we’ve come across in the hours since I’d had Cassandra sedated. A mistake I was not likely to repeat now that I had uncovered the motherlode of all mysteries—not easy to do to someone who has an army of investigators and several police at his beck and call.

“I think…Cassandra might be a plant.” He finally says, earning a gasp from Kelsey and a silencing look from me.

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered the same thing. She’d appeared out of nowhere, apparently brought here by a man who is currently in the wind. She’d had no family, no connections, and had readily accepted an insane job offer that I don’t think anyone could have predicted being offered. She had good training in martial arts, and despite her lack of formal education, I can tell that she’s intelligent.

But I just can’t bring myself to believe it. Before I can defend Cassandra against Luke, Kelsey cries, “She’s not a plant! We know where she’s been and who she’s been in contact with for the past _seven_ years. What kind of idiotic idea is that? You think she just got swept up by some mob and lived in poverty for seven years just to one day attempt suicide in Jack’s bathtub?”

“If some files have been deleted, how are we to know if any have been altered?” Luke points out, and I grit my teeth because he’s right.

“Maybe _you_ don’t know, because you’re an idiot, but _I_ know because _one_ of us, namely me, thought to check her record _independently_.”

My gaze shoots to Kelsey, who has now crossed her arms has her chin raised, utterly indignant in the face of Luke’s accusation. “You did?”

She brushes a lock of silky black hair behind her shoulder and haughtily examines her nails. “That’s right, I, the great Kelsey Romano, had better foresight than either of you knuckleheads and thought to _actually_ verify the records before trusting a stranger we found on the street. And they checked out at every step. Rest assured that Cassandra is not some secret dark horse plotting Jack’s downfall. Or if she is, it has nothing to do with any of the other groups.”

I’m absolutely dumbfounded. Kelsey notices and purrs, “I’ll take that raise any day now.”

_Noted._

Luke looks equally dumbfounded before his brows knit together in confusion. “As great as that news is, now we’re back to square one. We have a guy _we_ hire, who pretends to botch a debt collection and kidnaps her on the night she intended to commit suicide, who then produces the only photo that might remain of Thomas Russell, then lets us take two of his fingers for his trouble and waits for a couple weeks before vanishing into thin air? It makes no sense.”

Kelsey continues where Luke left off, “Not only that, but she’s taking extra time to go murder local heroin dealers with serious connections? It feels like the more we figure out, the less makes sense.”

_My thoughts exactly, Kelsey._

I clap my hands together, bringing both of their attention to me. “We just have to keep following the clues until we find something that _does_ make sense. We now know that her mother died of a heroin overdose seventeen or eighteen years ago now. The files might be deleted, but there’s still a chance we can find an obituary.”

“Jack, we can take care of that.” Luke says. “I checked the elevator records and I know you didn’t sleep much the night of the gala, and you’ve been up all night again. You’ll think better when you’re rested.”

“Yeah,” Kelsey and Luke rarely agree on things, so perhaps I should listen to them.

When they leave, I roll up my sleeves and return to Cassandra’s side. Despite her hours of sedation, she’s still fast asleep.

 _It’s not like she can get any more upset with me_ , I reason as I climb onto the bed beside her, pulling her limp body against mine with her comforter between us.

My face is buried in her soft hair, and I can smell coconuts from some kind of lotion or body wash on her, and I realize I’m more tired than I thought.

 _Must have been the stress keeping me going_ , I think before I drift into unconsciousness.


	23. TTYL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started writing this, I was reading a lot of T.M. Frazier and I wanted to incorporate her writing style (highly recommend, if you enjoy dark and very gritty romances). Then I was busy with life for a few months and now I'm on a Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark) kick and I feel a need to speed things up and keep the action going more than focusing on descriptions. If you're not vibing with the new chapters, let me know and I'll try to spend more time getting familiar with Frazier again so I can bring it back to ye olden months (like...April). Otherwise, please enjoy~

When I wake up, I’m absolutely seething. Not only do I have bruises and scrapes on my wrists—petty reminders of Jack’s effort to hold me here against my will—but Jack has his arm wrapped tightly around my waist and his warm breaths are hitting my ear with each exhale. I want to _scream_. He thinks he can gag and handcuff me and then use the opportunity to slide on into my bed while I’m drugged? Drugged, might I add, on _his_ orders?

_Fuck. That._

I slowly extract myself from him and look around, noting the same machines I’d woken up to when I’d first met Jack. _Unbelievable_.

I pull the IV out of my hand—honestly I think I’m getting pretty good at it, then slowly extract myself from his ironclad grip across my stomach. When I finally get free, I remove the heartbeat monitor and clip it to Jack’s finger before I stretch and look around the room.

My room is _covered_ with files, most of which relate to Terrence Driscoll, some of which mention my parasitic stepfather. I examine one of Driscoll’s lengthier files at a glance and feel a renewed sense of satisfaction for the way his throat had felt under the blade.

No matter, I quickly shed the green dress—which I’d burn if I had the time, considering the memories he’d given me in it—and change into jeans, sneakers, and a plain white tee. A baseball hat and shades are in the accessories drawer.

_Thank you, Kelsey._

Next, I slip on a shoulder holster, sliding a Beretta M9 into it and snapping it secure, grabbing two extra magazines for the road. I don’t know how much time I have before Jack wakes up and we reenact our last encounter, so the knives I sheathe and slip into the pockets of the nondescript gray cardigan I’m pulling on while opening the drawer with all of the cash and cards. I take several fake IDs, a couple bundles of cash, and two cards with me.

I take one last look at the traitorous bastard in my bed before pulling the door closed as quietly as possible, holding Jack’s filched keycard—mine was mysteriously _missing_ —to my chest as I enter the elevator and ride down to the ground floor.

When I reach the end, I make the hasty decision to exit through the valet exit, pulling the visor of the cap down and subtly shielding my face as I speed down the sidewalk toward the bustling city street.

My heart is pounding with adrenaline, because if Jack didn’t plan to kill me after finding out about Driscoll, he’s definitely going to plan to kill me when he finds out I’ve essentially locked him in my suite and robbed him of a couple thousand dollars. More, once I reach the bank on the corner, where I pull out an additional nine grand. Technically it’s my own account, but my instincts are telling me that Jack is going to be furious regardless.

After getting the last of the cash I’d need for a while, I hail a taxi to take me to a corner store where I pick up a burner phone and ask directions to a rental car company.

I’d apparently woken up around nine in the morning, which is fantastic news because everything is open, and I have no trouble getting a Prius with plates I’d swapped before entering the lobby. I doubt they’ll notice until after Jack arrives, tracking my credit card to try to find me.

My first trip in the car is to a department store, where I load up on a variety of items. Clothes, bleach, paracord, and enough groceries to get me by for the week. I take them to the first pay-by-the-week motel I find outside of the zone of Jack’s surveillance. There, I switch the license plates again before unpacking the trunk and making myself at home in my new motel room. It’s somehow smaller than my apartment from before I met Jack, and it’s a shoebox compared to the suite Jack had let me stay in.

I try not to blame Jack for the quality of the shelter. I could have rented a stable place if he’d let me go without a fuss. I’d have access to my entire bank account, without having to wonder if he would remove all the funds when he realizes I’m gone. But all things considered, quitting The Acropolis always carried the risk that I’d be left on my own, without the resources The Acropolis has to offer me.

I can’t help but feel a little more hopeless now, though. If I’d thought finding targets with Jack’s files had been difficult, they’d be nearly impossible without them. The only way I knew would be a surefire bet would be to camp out in enemy territory, putting myself at risk of surveillance or worse at the hands of one of Jack’s enemies. I remembered Misha telling Jack that I was ready to leave, adding “so long as she’s kept away from the regulars.” I have no doubt in my mind that enemy territory is riddled with “regulars,” and without Jack’s files, I have no way of spotting them before they spot me.

He’d told me that the treaty forbade people from going after relations and employees, but he’d also hinted that the treaty had been broken, and if it hadn’t before, it was definitely broken now. If anyone knew that I was the one who’d broken it, I’m not sure any of the treaty’s protections would apply to me.

_Best avoid those places for now._

Which left me out of the city altogether. No doubt, Jack’s allies would help him hunt me down—which he’d most definitely be doing considering the access I’d had to the high security files—and his enemies would either seek me out for breaking the treaty, or for fun, because who knows what Zhao’s up to?

Now I just have to find out how to hunt down one suburban couple without surveillance or police reports. How hard can it be?


	24. Fear of the Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack wakes up feeling jilted.

My pulse spikes for a moment before I shoot to a sitting position in Cassandra’s bed. I can tell that it’s spiked because the heartbeat monitor I’d fallen asleep listening to hits a fever pitch when I feel the warm, but empty, space in the bed where Cassandra _should_ be. The knot weighing in my stomach seems to get worse as I perceive the silence, interrupted only by a steady _beep-beep-beep._

I toss the clip on my finger aside and unplug the machine just as it begins to screech for medical assistance before I sprint to the bathroom—empty—and then her living space—also empty.

I feel an unfamiliar breathlessness climbing up my chest, and then I’m crouching down, trying to remember how to breathe. _Inhale_. _Exhale. No time for this—_

I pull out my phone and, not trusting myself to remember how to breathe long enough to get the words out, I punch out a text and send it to the Acropolis number, the number which forwards the message to everyone else down the chain.

_M missing. Find her._

When I hear a buzz behind me and I realize she’s left her phone in the room, the phone in my hand cracks again, and when I look down to check the damage I can tell it’s not going to recover from this one.

When I see her dress on the ground, I march to her closet and start trying to determine which of her clothes are missing so I can give a description to the Pantheon employees who stay at street level. I quickly comprehend that it’s an impossible task, so I grab Cassandra’s abandoned cell and dial Kelsey, who picks up on the first ring.

“Ohmygod, are you okay? Where are you?” She asks so quickly that her words blur together.

“It’s me,” I say, and she goes silent. “I need you to come tell me which of the clothes you bought for Cassandra are missing.”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

After she hangs up, I remember my own phone and dial the business resource center.

“M? Where are you?” Jade Santo, daytime IT manager, says from the other end. If I wasn’t in the midst of losing my mind right now, I’d be more than a little pleased with their efficient questions.

“It’s me,” I tell her. “I need a new phone. Bring it to the Hera Suite.”

“Of course. I’ll also bring you a new keycard.”

My hand immediately goes to my badge, which is now missing. I curse, then end the call. Logically I know there’s no way she could have gotten out of the room without my badge, but it still stings. She’d escaped and locked me on the floor.

_I guess that’s karma._

Kelsey arrives first, and Jade delivers a new phone and keycard not long after, informing me that my keycard had been used in the elevator only fifteen minutes ago, and that still frames of the security footage of her exit had already been forwarded to everyone working on the streets.

_If we find her alive, Jade gets bumped up a paygrade._

Jade also tells me that our last visual of Cassandra is her getting into a taxicab heading East. I tell her to track down the driver and find out her destination, and then put an alert on all of Cassandra’s cards, identities, and cash serial numbers.

When Jade leaves, Kelsey goes immediately to the top drawer of the dresser. “Looks like she’s not completely defenseless.”

I peer into the drawer and feel a morsel of relief at the empty space where a pistol should be, and the next drawer Kelsey opens reveals several missing magazines and blades. _With only several hundred more good omens, I might remember how these lungs work_.

“I bet you liked it more when she was catatonic, huh?” Kelsey observes, and I clench my fists to resist the urge to crush her windpipe.

Yes, I’d hated seeing her out of her mind from what I’d done to her, but I hate even _more_ that she’s now out on the street _god knows where_ doing _god knows what_.

Despite all my concerns, I’d also expected that she couldn’t get too far within ten minutes of leaving the building and had stupidly hoped that we’d track her down within the hour. When the first sixty minutes come to a close, I renew my thinking with the second, and then the third. By the fourth hour, I’ve been through one cab driver, one car rental clerk, a department store cashier, and despite the threat of torture, murder, and family-member hostage-taking, not a one can give me any clues as to where she’s gone and I only have myself to blame for sending her to learn the tricks of the trade from the best in the business.

The fact that we haven’t found the increasingly infuriating hybrid she’d rented is both a thorn in my side and a sweet relief. If we find the car with Cassandra, then nobody has to die. If we find the car without Cassandra…

I won’t let myself think about that. I spare another second to think of Lake, and how I’d refused to help her. If Lake’s missing girls really hadn’t booked the first Greyhound and had ended up in Zhao’s vile claws, who’s to say that the same thing can’t happen to Cassandra. She’d been able to go head-to-head with Luke, but they hadn’t been taking the training very seriously. In a fight against me, she’d lost hands-down. The line between Luke’s abilities and my own is exactly where Zhao’s top dogs are, and I’m not exactly feeling ready to bet Cassandra’s life on a fucking coin toss, no matter how pissed I am about her repetitive death-defying stunts.

_Fuck. I don’t even know if she’s still planning to off herself._

_No. She wouldn’t have grabbed that cash if she’s planning on offing herself._

_But things can change…_

Before I know what my hands are doing, the phone is ringing. Just when I think it’s about to go to voicemail, Lake’s sultry purr hits my ear. “Thinking of me so soon, Jack?”

“M., the woman you met yesterday. She’s run off and I need to find her.” Even I’m amazed at the coolness of my voice. Not a single ounce of the chaotic emotions warring in my veins.

“Now, now, Jack.” Lake’s voice is almost frigid now, all trace of her regular flirting extinguished in only a second. “You’re well aware of my feelings on caging pretty birds.”

“Please, Lake. She’s in danger, from others and herself. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.”

I hear a swift intake of breath before she slips back into her teasing tone. “Is that _desperation_ I hear, Jack? It must be, after the parting words we shared yesterday.”

I can feel a muscle tic in my jaw, but I keep my voice even as I tell her, “I believe it was you who did all the sharing.” I know Misha would kill me for what I’m about to do next, but I take a deep breath and do it anyway. “If we find her alive, all of my resources are yours to use against Zhao.”

The line is silent. _Too_ silent. I think that she’s hung up on me and I check the screen to find that no, she hasn’t.

Finally, she speaks again, the seductive lilt all but disappeared, replaced with boredom. “You know, after I got home yesterday, I was absolutely boiling in anger with you.” _No._ “But then I did some thinking and realized that you were absolutely right. It would be suicide to go up against him without solid evidence.” _She picked_ this _week to become a woman of reason?_ _No, no no…_ “You should be careful what favors you offer people, Jack. Make too many promises and you’ll have nothing left.”

_NO!_

Then she gives a soft sigh and mutters, “You’re lucky that I like you so much, or that little empire you’ve got there would be putty in my hands right now. Send me what you have on your poor little birdie. I’ll see what my lovely ladies can find out—”

“Thank you,” I breathe in gratitude and disbelief.

“—but none of them are going anywhere near Z or D’s territories.” She curtly finishes. “You can take my money and my time, but not my girls, Jack.”

She hangs up before I can say another word. The moment the line goes dead, I send her all the information we have on Cassandra since she’s disappeared. Although I trust Lake enough to give her the full file, I don’t trust her ladies of the night not to spill some juicy details to gossip-hungry clientele. Instead, the file I give her consists of the names on the IDs missing from Cassandra’s drawer, plus the matching credit cards and our surveillance frames of Cassandra exiting the hotel. _Fleeing_ , more like. As a special favor to Lake and her “lovely ladies,” I give an additional warning not to engage with Cassandra. I had no idea what Lake’s own abilities in the field are, especially considering her surprising endurance in the first few years building the newest empire in the city, but I was almost certain that her employees are more lover than fighter.

Luke is the hardest to deal with. Despite Kelsey’s assurances from the previous evening, he now seems infinitely more convinced of Cassandra’s disloyalty. He hasn’t said anything, but his brooding and disapproving glances tell me everything I need to know. He thinks Cassandra tricked me last night, pretending to be catatonic to avoid the fallout upon overhearing our conversations about her past—or at least the little of it we were able to scrounge up. He thinks the things we dug up on her are real, but that she might have been blackmailed into the “kidnapping” perpetrated by Ramo Moretti, which is why she’d slit her wrists in the suite. I know _this_ because I’d asked Kelsey what he thinks, and he’s keeping his conspiracies quiet only from me, it seems. Smart. I’d probably lose it, and then he’d lose something important. Maybe a finger, maybe his brother, depending on my level of stress and his timing.

Kelsey, on the other hand, has been working double time. So far, she’s driven to over fifteen hotels, motels, apartment complexes, and realtor agencies to show photos of Cassandra. So _far_ , not a single person has seen her.

I’d originally assumed Cassandra had brought the gun for self-defense, but the bleach and rope had made me reconsider. I doubt she’s planning on killing me, although I also wouldn’t be surprised if she was, but her actions after leaving add just another puzzle piece to the mix made by randomly throwing the pieces of several different puzzles into a big pile that we can’t find and then saying, “Good luck!” In my mind, I know there _must_ be some kind of connection that can make any of this make sense, but this newest revelation was just like noticing a different art style and saying, “oh look, one more puzzle to overcome.”

Cassandra is planning to kill someone. She’d killed Terrence Driscoll and if the slashed throat hadn’t indicated that it was personal, the _letter_ certainly had. Would this next person be personal?

This thought only made me further infuriated that we hadn’t uncovered a single piece of information about her. If we’d had anything more to go on, we might be able to figure out _who_ she was going after, which would help us determine _where_ we could find her. But no, instead I’m stuck crossing out impossibly small locations on a map each time Kelsey rings me and wondering which of the thousands of other buildings she could be in right now. At this point I’d _welcome_ the concept of her betraying us because then I’d know she was probably under the protection of another group—one with resources to prevent anything from happening to her after I’d stupidly announced her entire presence to the city’s gossip columns and hinted at the value she might have as a bargaining chip with that photo op. I’d meant to shield her from the justice system, but instead I’d taken her to the edge of shark-infested waters and convinced her that jumping in was safer than staying with me.

As even more hours pass without a sign of her, and with even more allies on the ground searching, I can feel the intrusive thoughts burrowing themselves into my brain. I’m thinking of Viktoria now more than ever, knowing that those final details Misha refused to share must have been the most awful of them all. And that had been _before_ the villains of the city had gotten creative.


	25. You Never Know What You've Got Until It's Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass makes progress.

How hard could it be to hunt down one suburban couple without surveillance or police reports? Stupidly easy, it turns out, when they have a cringe-worthy joint social media account (“LisaGrant Schubert,” which leads me to believe that he is _definitely_ the one who cheated) starring a profile picture of them posing in front of their white-picket fence.

So easy that it makes me want to slap my palm to my forehead for not checking social media first, although I’d kind of assumed that a crime lord paying over a million for annual city surveillance would have more than, you know, social media.

Thanks to the public library, I’d managed to find out more about them _without_ the risk of being kidnapped and drugged. Well, I suppose that the risk is now constant, but at least there’s a better chance of avoiding it here.

Staring at the profile picture gives me the feeling I imagine gold miners in the 1800s got when they stumbled upon a huge chunk of shiny metal. I almost can’t believe that they’d gone to such lengths to avoid being flagged as part of the criminal underworld yet set a photo of themselves posing in front of their house on public, in _this_ era of internet privacy. Yeesh.

I decide _categorically_ not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I spend the hours until the library closes searching every real estate website I can find for “542,” which are the only vertically placed numbers visible above Grant Schubert’s head. I have a strong suspicion that there are one or two more numbers hidden behind that deceptively handsome face of his, but hell, I’m not complaining.

Unfortunately, the search is painfully unfulfilling, and each new realty website I visit makes me feel like I’m digging for a needle in a needlestack, knowing that I might actually be searching for a bobby pin.

_Oh, what I wouldn’t do for a little bit of access to Jack Caine Warren’s business resources team for an hour._

Then I scowl, remembering that there’s quite a lot I won’t do for that access. Namely, the egomaniac himself, which he’d clearly thought was somewhere in his future considering how much of his body had covered mine this morning.

I inwardly grumble _“bastard”_ and continue my quest to find the people I plan to use as proverbial punching bags to release some of this pent up irritation.

The reminder of my more recent betrayal by the guy who had _technically_ saved my life (although it had _technically_ been from myself) has me all sorts of messed up. Only a few days ago, I would have breezily accepted the handcuffs and placed my life in his hands yet again, waiting for him to either calm down or kill me, either of which I would have accepted without a fight.

I feel my cheeks heat with shame at the reminder of how little pride I’d had until only a few days ago. To be fair to myself, I’d had no joy, no hope, or any other real feelings either, so the lack of pride really feels like just another drop in the bucket. Also, it means that things _had_ to turn out this way. I wouldn’t have gotten my pride back if I hadn’t killed Driscoll, and if I hadn’t killed Driscoll, I never would have put my _former_ employer in the precarious position of having violated the terms of the treaty. Sure, I could have started with Grant and Lisa, but my violation of the accord was always going to be a foregone conclusion. If anything, I should be glad that I left now, before I’d treated that deceptively angel-faced asshole to any more undeserved affection or homicidal favors. No, I’m sure it’s better that we departed early, before things became even more complicated between us or these new plans of mine.

But I couldn’t throw away our relationship entirely—after all, it was thanks to him that I’d collected the sweet, sweet memory of Driscoll’s throat spraying blood like a sprinkler under the artful orchestration of my knife. Without Jack Caine Warren, I wouldn’t have reached this level of self-sufficiency. Also, I’d be dead. Perhaps I should send him a gift basket as a show of thanks when I finish with my list.

I find myself frowning again, wondering exactly what my plans _are_ once I finish my list. The entire reason I’d stopped contemplating suicide was because I’d finally found a purpose that superseded my own insistent desire to suck face with the grim reaper. What would I do after I fulfill that purpose? Go find a husband and get a house in the ‘burbs like Lisa?

I shudder at the thought, before remembering the part where Jack _fucking_ Warren had taken my best feelings—probably some of my _only_ feelings—I’d had since childhood and crushed them into dust.

 _Men._ _Can’t live with ‘em._

So far, my post-op plans were looking more like either living without men for eternity, or simply not living. I’m starting to believe that I’m not a great planner, which is further evidenced when I’m ushered out of the library only to find that my reliable little Prius has been stolen—part of the plan—but that no other cars remain in the parking lot— _not_ part of the plan. I’d planned to steal one, but I must have hung around too long in the library searching for my targets and left myself stranded.

 _You’re definitely going to prison after your list is finished, Cass,_ I tell myself. _That’s where this disorganized road leads. To prison._

I sigh and begin the walk back to the main roads, hailing another taxi to take me to some department store which will offer me more opportunities to hotwire _something_.

And then the most amazing thing happens when the driver bypasses traffic by turning onto a side street.

We _pass_ the house from the profile picture. It’s like a sign from the universe. I was _meant_ to gut those two like pigs, the universe is _willing_ it.

It takes physical effort not to leap out of the cab, but I somehow manage to keep my eyes thoroughly transfixed on each and every road sign we pass, planning to return when I have the supplies I need.

I ask the driver to drop me off on the corner and finish my walk to the street, pulling my cap extra low over my face when I walk through the parking lot and into the store. Fortunately, my shopping list is short, and I’m in and out so quickly that I spend longer choosing a good car than I had for tarp, tape, paint, or the adorable little coveralls in the cart. When I finally settle on a newly arrived black, older model truck, and I finish watching the woman who parked it enter the store, I break the plastic off the metal part of the coveralls hanger and slide it under the window, moving it around until I reach the satisfying pop of the lock release. From there, it’s all muscle memory.

When I get back to the motel, I back the truck into a parking space so the plates aren’t visible from the street and bring my bounty into my room. Thankfully, there’s no sign that the skeevy-looking motel owner has taken any liberties with my room or my things. This is a pleasant surprise, because I’d be able to wager a guess as to what a jury would think of a rope, bleach, several serrated blades, and a firearm stripped of its serial number.

I resolve to swap plates with another unsuspecting renter in the morning, and then spend the next couple of days watching the Schuberts from the privacy of my new truck. I’ll take all my things with me. It’ll be impossible to explain if I get pulled over and searched, but I trust myself to avoid the cops more than the motel clerk who just looks like he’d die for an opportunity to tell law enforcement something like, “ _We may not provide much, but we provide privacy_ ” moments before handing over a key to my room following the slightest low-effort intimidation.

Later in the evening when I’m lying on the cheap mattress, feeling the outline of springs pressing into my body and pulling the scratchy blanket over my shoulders, I’m lamenting my own weakness for mourning the loss of that amazing silky bedspread and ever-fluffed pillows.

I turn over with a huff, hating Jack Caine Warren for making me accustomed to luxury before compelling me to abandon it. After a few more huffs and restless tossing, I finally throw the blanket off my body and groan in frustration.

The bed isn’t the only thing I’m begrudgingly missing from The Acropolis tonight.


	26. Helpless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack copes, barely, with Cassandra's continuing absence.

If we find Cassandra alive, she’s never, _never_ again getting lessons in evasion from Misha. The last thing we’d found had been that rented Prius, driven by half-wit car thief, and another department store visit. We had no idea how she’d gotten to the department store from the library, where the thief had sworn up and down that he’d found the car.

It’s been _eight_ days, and we have no leads.

Never. Again.

That sense of dread I’d experienced on the first day of knowing she’d been out on the streets for all of my enemies to find—that discomfiting feeling I’d thought had been my penance for what I’d done to her—was now worse than ever, and impossibly getting worse with each passing day without word. My last thread of sanity is resting on two things. First, we hadn’t found her body. Cassandra missing is bad. Cassandra dead is worse. Second, her last department store receipt showed that she’d purchased plastic tarp and duct tape. Because there’s been no news, I assume she’s holed up somewhere torturing some thoroughly outmatched heroin dealer and hasn’t had time to peek her head out for any surveillance cameras or search parties.

Luke is convinced now that she’s betrayed us. He’s tried to comfort me with platitudes like, “We just have to return to how things were before Ramo brought her in,” and “She’s probably perfectly safe, hiding out with whatever group sent her to infiltrate The Parthenon.” He’d stopped with the platitudes on day _four_ , during which I’d had his beloved younger brother Tav taken to a location and refused anyone to provide him further information on Tav’s condition. Since then, all he does is sulk and glare at me. I think he knows that I haven’t hurt Tav, but perhaps now he understands how completely worthless platitudes are in the face of the unknown.

By day _six_ , Luke could no longer run things without me, so I’d returned to doing my actual job, although I wouldn’t call it _working_ , since I was half-present at all hours. I think Misha is doing most of the heavy lifting behind the scenes, but I haven’t seen him since he’d come to tell me that he and Tav had made Driscoll’s homicide investigation vanish into thin air.

In the same eight days since Cassandra’s disappearance, we’d also made zero progress in our own investigation into Driscoll. We’d made zero progress investigating Thomas Russel, Cassandra’s past, or Ramo Moretti. Since taking over for Misha, I’d adapted to the ease of access I’d enjoyed for the past seven years. I’d ask a question and a detailed answer would be on my desk by the next morning. I’d give a name and a person would be dragged before me by the end of the week. I don’t remember a time when I’d felt so hopeless and confused. If I ever had, it had been before I’d been taken in by Misha.

The worst part—aside from not knowing Cassandra’s status as dead or alive, that is—is how many half answers we _do_ have. We don’t know where Cassandra is, but we know she’s planning to hurt and probably kill someone. We don’t know why Cassandra killed Terrence Driscoll, but we know he was worse than we’d thought, and she’d known more than we had. We don’t know for what purpose Ramo Moretti had brought Cassandra to The Acropolis, but we know he stuck around after losing his fingers for it until disappearing while Cassandra was out in the woods training with Misha. We don’t know where Thomas Russell is, but we know he’s having help lying low by the fact he’d paid off Orla amounts of money he’d never have obtained on his own just before he’d disappeared. For that matter, we don’t know why he’d paid off Orla but left his debt to me outstanding. We don’t know anything about Cassandra’s mother, but we know she was connected to Thomas Russel, died in a manner related to heroin, and that Cassandra had never disavowed her connection to him. There are so many threads that all relate to Cassandra, but they seem almost entirely disconnected from one another. Was Ramo Moretti working for Thomas Russell? Or his benefactor? What benefactor could command such high loyalty for someone to sacrifice two fingers for a mission? Did Thomas Russell not pay his debt to me so Moretti would have a reason to bring Cassandra to me? But from Cassandra’s known history, there’s no contact between her and Russell for at least seven years. If it had been Russell’s idea, why?

Cassandra Nichols, Thomas Russell, Ramo Moretti, Cassandra’s mother, and some files for Terrence Driscoll. Files had been wiped from every database that I have access to. Who was doing the deletions? Was it the same person for them all? Why leave some of Driscoll’s but delete others? Why leave Cassandra’s files after she’d turned eighteen?

My business resource team was looking into the files to find out who had been responsible for deleting them, but so many records had been deleted that there was no way it could have been one person from one office.

My best guess is that Russell is in witness protection, although that wouldn’t explain how he’d paid off Orla in such a short time. If there’s anything I know about the government, it’s that they’re stingy with their funds, and not likely to let hundreds of thousands of dollars go just to get someone out of debt while they were planning on vanishing him anyway.

So my best guess is only slightly less worthless than my other guesses. I’d never say it to him, but Luke’s idea that Cassandra is a traitor is one of the better theories in my mind. If she’s a traitor, then she’s probably safe and sound, not strapped to a cinderblock at the bottom of the West River—which would be one of the kinder homicides perpetrated by fellow treaty members in the past several months.

It’s almost nine in the evening when I get the phone call. I’ve been anxious to pick up my phone all week. No news is bad, bad news is bad, and good news is nonexistent, it seems. When I put the receiver to my ear, the words are music to my ears.

“We found her.”


	27. No Rest for the Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass gets what she wants.

I spend a week surveilling the beautiful couple at their beautiful house.

It turns out that watching a middle-class, suburban couple during an ordinary week is…extraordinarily boring.

Grant Schubert leaves for his office job wearing a white button-down, a striped tie, and some version of black or brown slacks at exactly seven forty-five each morning. Every day, Lisa Schubert leaves for her part-time job as an apartment manager at one in the afternoon, They both return at six in the evening, and on Tuesday and Thursday they go out to eat—I assume from their incredibly banal natures that this is a weekly occurrence as well.

On Saturday, they disappear in the evening for several hours, and by the way they’re dressed I assume it’s some sort of Latin American dancing class.

They have no children, no pets, and not even a houseplant between them. They do not spend any time socializing during the week I watch them, and when they disappear for five hours on Sunday, I have my own guess as to what they’d been doing, and it strengthens my resolve all the more.

On Monday, when Lisa leaves for work, I pull my supplies from the truck and tie my hair up under my hat. I’m wearing the coveralls, and now they’re spattered with some of the white paint that I carry into the house last, after I’ve finished setting up the rest of my supplies.

The tarp is covering the dining room floor and most of the visible furniture with the exception of two of the solid-cherrywood dining chairs. I set the can of paint atop the tarped table and make sure none of my weapons are visible. I leave the coveralls partially unzipped, revealing a plain white t-shirt under it but concealing the shoulder harness and my gun. The rope is hanging down the backs of each of the two dining chairs left visible, angled in a way that doesn’t show the ropes from the dining hall entryway.

I position myself beside the entryway, hidden unless you look to the left immediately after entering the room.

I find an unused paintbrush in Lisa’s “crafting room,” and I use it to brush broad strokes across one of the walls in front of the entryway.

And then I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And then at six, I hear the key turn in the lock, and I hear the clacking of heels on their hardwood floors. _Lisa._

I pull out my knife and hold it in my dominant hand, which is now gloved thanks to the consideration of the victims of my most recent auto theft.

When she catches sight of the entryway she gives a startled, “What on earth?” before the clacking heads my way. The moment she passes through the entryway, she barely has time to notice me before I’ve covered her mouth and pressed my blade to her throat.

_Hey, I’m getting pretty handy at this._

Her body stiffens immediately until it begins trembling several seconds later. By that time, I’ve guided her into the first of the two chairs and duct taped her mouth so I can work with both hands to knot her hands behind her back, held in her own well-crafted furniture.

After she’s secured, I tip her chair at an angle and drag her out of sight from the entryway. Not a moment too soon, I realize as I hear the door closing before Grant’s heavier footfalls approach us.

When I spare a glance at her, her eyes are wild, and I can tell she’s already on the verge of full-blown panic.

I smile at her, and it seems to push her over the edge. She starts squealing through her nose and the heavier footfalls move quicker in my direction.

_Thanks for speeding this up, Lisa._

“Lisa?” Grant’s voice reaches us right before he does, and once he crosses the threshold I waste no time before driving my blade directly into his stomach. Lisa’s screeching reaches a peak then, and she begins desperately thrashing around on the chair.

Grant clutches his stomach before falling to his knees. I use the opportunity to pull out my gun and pistol whip him in the side of the head, knocking him flat. Once I’m certain he’s out, I use all the muscles in my body to leverage him into the other dining chair, securing each of his wrists with rope looped around the back legs of the chair while he’s unconscious. Then I apply matching duct tape and refrain from making a comment to Lisa about how cute it is that they match. _Barely._

Then I go to their kitchen and get a glass of water to dump on Grant’s face.

It takes him a minute to come to, but the wait is worth it to see the shock on his face, the attempt to flex and pull himself out of the bindings, and the agony when he realizes that clenching muscles with a stab wound in his torso is _not_ the best idea.

Lisa is sobbing now, and I can barely appreciate it considering the power I’m feeling under Grant’s hate-filled glare.

When both of their attention is focused on me and Lisa seems to have stopped with the hysterics, I start giving them what they want. An explanation.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here,” I announce, twirling my newly bloody knife in my gloved hand. “But to start things off, I’ll answer some preliminary questions. No, I’m not going to let you go. No, I am not robbing you. No, I don’t want anything that you have to offer me, so don’t bother trying to bargain or negotiate. I’ve come for your lives—”

At this, Lisa’s wailing crescendos yet again, and I wait impatiently for her to finish up before resuming.

“Have no fear,” I assure them, “By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be wishing your lives were ended. It will be very consensual murdering, I promise.”

At a renewed shrill cry from Lisa, I decide that I’m going to start with her vocal chords.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to start reading the newest book in the Hidden Legacy series by Ilona Andrews (highly recommend, for any fans of superpowers, romance, and high quality writing) so I might not find time between work and reading to update until the weekend.


	28. You Reap What You Sow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack loses Cass. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied. I burned through that new Ilona Andrews book like it was kerosene.

I’ve lost her.

Again.

The fact that this time I chose to lose her doesn’t really make the uncertainty about her current situation any easier to handle. The choice was impossible, really.

I remember the relief I’d felt when two of my patrols had told me they’d found her. I remember the fear I’d felt when they said they’d followed the sound of a gunshot into a residential subdivision. I remember exhaling a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding when they said she’d walked out of a house without a scratch on her. I remember the confusion I’d felt when they told me she’d been carrying a bag filled with obviously bloody clothes.

I remember the conflicting whirlwind of my feelings when they’d told me that she was leaving the scene of a homicide. A gunshot, a crime scene, and Cassandra.

I’d had to make a choice, right then, about whether to have my men keep her in their sights, or whether to have them salvage as much from the scene as possible before law enforcement responded to the inevitable calls reporting the gunshot.

I remember the renewed helplessness of telling them _not_ to follow her. Telling them to clean up as fast as possible. Hanging up on them and calling the sergeant and asking him to delay a dispatch for twenty minutes. Calling Jade to tell her to send out men to try to find the truck they’d seen her leaving in, and telling her to find, document, and then eradicate all footage of Cassandra coming to and leaving the area. As I’m telling her, my voice is flat and I’m already aware that we’ve lost any chance of tracking Cassandra to wherever she’s going.

Thirty minutes later, I meet with Dr. Mainlove and the two patrolmen who cleaned up the crime scene and I wait while Dr. Mainlove examines the bodies.

I looked at the bodies when the patrolmen had arrived and even I’d felt the goosebumps spread across my arms as I comprehended Cassandra’s actions..

The word “escalation” comes to mind.

Without more time that I wouldn’t grant her, Dr. Mainlove couldn’t determine how long Cassandra had held these two. Judging by the rings on their left hands—easy to spot considering Cassandra had removed each of their middle and forefingers—the pair were married. The house we’d found them in most likely was their own, and our investigation into them turned up nothing. No criminal convictions, no criminal connections, and only three traffic tickets between them. Yet for some reason, these two had been brutalized well beyond what she’d done to Terrence Driscoll.

Mr. Schubert had the misfortune of having his penis separated from his body. Mrs. Schubert had a deep cut in her lower abdomen. Both had severe burns on each of their wrists—apparently they’d struggled against their bindings for quite a while. My guess was during their finger amputations, although I wouldn’t doubt that they’d struggled fiercely when Mr. Schubert had been made a eunuch, or when Mrs. Schubert had been stabbed into the uterus. There was darker blood above Mr. Schubert’s upper chest, where a knife had stabbed him dead center. He was dead from the moment he’d received the wound, but apparently had been alive long enough that all the other wounds on his body were peri-mortem, according to Dr. Mainlove. This means that Cassandra had kept them alive through each of the injuries she’d inflicted, and they were severe. Much more severe than the quick death she’d given to apparent serial rapist and drug peddler Terrence Driscoll.

We didn’t have time to go in-depth into her latest kills, so I’d ordered the bodies disposed of and left in the early morning. The knowledge that she was still alive calmed me down enough that I managed to fall into a slumber until the next afternoon. It was all I could be afforded, considering the auction scheduled for tonight.

Each year, each of us in the treaty meet up at a private, yet popular event in the city to prove that we can all work together without engaging in warfare. That was the original purpose, anyway, when we’d spawned the idea seven years ago. Now, it serves as the only time that each of us can freely gather intel on one another without having to use a specialized camera scope from at least one building over. The _downside_ of that is that each of us didn’t exactly stumble into our positions, and we can scent weakness on each other like a shark scenting blood in water.

I would have to pull it together for this evening. One slip up, and they’d send their spies and mercenaries with renewed fervor. If they were able to bribe someone into giving up the object of my misery, Cassandra would be completely vulnerable.

I feel nothing as I prepare for the evening. It’s almost as Luke said—like before I’d ever met her. Nothing matters, everything and everyone is a tool to be used to my advantage. The penalty for failure is death.

I repeat these things in my head as I change into my costume for the evening—courtesy of Kelsey. A maroon tuxedo with a cream-colored undershirt and solid gold cufflinks and tie.

When Kelsey had first announced that she wanted to join The Parthenon, I’d nearly laughed her out the building. After she’d returned every day for two weeks, launching her proposals for “branding,” I’d finally shut up and heard her spiel, and it was…convincing, to say the least. Misha had obviously drilled into me the importance of appearances, but I’d still doubted Kelsey’s interest in feng shui and imaging. It had taken her several months after I’d hired her for her to convince me to hand over the controls to my wardrobe. Recalling how I’d used to attend meetings in jeans made me want to flush with humiliating nostalgia.

All these years later, and I feel like a different man. Not only does she select my clothes, hair, and most of my press photos, but I feel more capable of managing those things on my own.

She must spot the appreciation on my face because after I exit my room and face her for final inspection, she chides, “Uh-uh, Boss. We negotiated three years ago that you’d already promoted me to the highest available level for my position.”

“I have to account for inflation.” I tell her, not missing a beat. Then we smile at each other.

I often have to remind myself that no matter how much power I have access to, I cannot buy or coerce myself into friendships like the ones I share with Kelsey and Luke.

Luke had sacrificed higher education and the chance at something more just to help me build up The Parthenon after Viktoria died, and Misha sank every reliable alliance we’d had into the ground. Kelsey had followed not long after, although her request to join had been made more out of necessity. She’d come out of the closet to her ritzy parents and suddenly she’d had no one to rely on but the two boys she’d known from the wrong side of the tracks.

“Heavy lies the head that wears the crown, huh boss?” She says, brushing some stray hairs into position.

“ _Uneasy_ lies the head that wears the crown,” I correct her, and she rolls her eyes in typical Kelsey fashion as she finishes tugging my garments into perfect position.

“Don’t be too drab tonight, boss,” She says, patting me on the back too hard for her own hands, and she shakes them off after, wincing at the pain of her own enthusiasm.

If I weren’t still caught up thinking about Cassandra, I would appreciate the time with Kelsey by laughing at her own mistake.

Instead, we’re both quiet as we enter the elevator and descend to the waiting limousine, where she drops me off and I ride in silence to a fittingly silent auction.

When the limousine pulls up to the auction, I step out alone and enter the building in the same solitary way I’d approached the last six meetings. On the positive side, Lake Hargreaves, wearing a stunning seafoam gown with a daringly plunging neckline meets me at the entrance and takes my arm, which I gratefully accept.

It’s no secret to the others that I’m aligned with Lake—I wouldn’t be surprised if any of them knew why. Even Daumier and Zhao _must_ be aware of my hostility toward them.

I’m glaring in their direction when I feel a tug at my forearm and I glance down at Lake, careful not to peer into her cleavage. There are rumors around the city claiming that once you gaze once, you can never escape her influence. Not that I believe the rumor, but I’m not about to challenge her talents within her own profession, especially not after she’d offered her help to find Cassandra, even though it had turned out to be futile in the end.

Now I’m looking to her sky-blue eyes, which are focused across the room as her slight fingers grasp my forearm with surprising strength.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asks, turning her gaze on me with a confused expression.

It’s my turn to be confused. “Tell you—” but then my eyes follow her earlier line of vision and I have to stop my jaw from falling open. I fail; my jaw is on the floor, and Lake is the one to swiftly push my chin up so my lips can purse with lack of understanding.

Cassandra is _here_.

Cassandra is _here_ and I still haven’t recovered my breath because she looks ravishing. Tendrils of her wavy, chestnut locks spill out an eloquent updo, and the longest strands grace her slender shoulders, drawing attention to her slender neck and exquisitely creamy skin, which is further accentuated in the silky, golden, slip dress clinging delicately to each and every one of her shapely curves.

I glance down at my golden cufflinks and scowl.

_Is this her doing?_

I must have separated from Lake, because I’m halfway through the crowd when I realize that she’s chatting up some other silent auction participant and I freeze at the exact moment she smiles. In my head, I’m aware that the smiling and small talk is all part of the show, but my brain can never quite assimilate fast enough, and it always stalls out once I get a glimpse of those curved lips, playfully hinting at a good humor that doesn’t exist anywhere within a mile radius of Cassandra’s body.

And then she glances up, and her gaze meets mine. Her hazel eyes are warm, and my brain is suddenly useless goo. I’m distantly aware that the last time I’d seen her she had been fleeing from me with _purpose_ , but my current body is screaming at me that all is forgiven, and that she loves me, and that I will die without her, and a number of other equally ridiculous sentiments I’m barely able to suppress by the time she reaches me.

_She’d been moving toward me?_

Without a word, she places her hand inside my crooked elbow, and I lead her mindlessly through the throng of people and toward my table.

 _What_ is _it with this woman? She’s like a damn siren_ …

By the time my brain finishes catching up, she’s already draped across the chair beside mine, giving detailed instructions to a poor catering employee who is desperately trying to scribble down her list of allergies. The allergies I know she doesn’t even have.

When she sidles comfortably back into her chair and catches my expression, she shrugs, “I can’t stand cherries.”

My brows are practically attached, I’m furrowing them with such intensity while trying to understand what is going on. If it even is going on.

_Is this a dream?_

Cassandra puts me out of my misery with a delicate, but lethal, hand on my arm.

“Let’s dance?” she asks, pulling me toward the makeshift ballroom floor--set up to keep us entertained until the bidding opens up--before I decide whether to object. I wouldn’t, obviously. Who knows how long I’ll be having this dream? I’m not going to squander it.

“Why are you here?” My voice is nearly a whisper as I resist the urges to both crush her to me until one of her bones snaps and to put her over my shoulder and carry her back to her suite in The Acropolis.

“I saw that you’d had men following me. They stayed behind to clean up my mess.” She casts me a demure look from under those thick lashes, and I have to swallow before I’m fully present again. “I was surprised, Jack. I thought you’d be angry with me after you’d found out about Driscoll. But you still helped clean up that horrible couple after I’d fled when the mister had forced me to resort to my gun.”

More confusion, but my brows couldn’t possibly knit closer together by now. “Why would I be angry with you about Driscoll?”

She tilts her head to the side, giving me a generous view of her graceful neck. I want to suck and bite on it until everyone in the room knows she’s unavailable. “Because he’s one of Daumier’s men?”

And my breath stops in time with the world.


	29. An Olive Branch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack explains things to Cassandra. Cassandra invites trouble.

Louis Daumier.

 _Lou_.

Cassandra has a personal relationship with one of the banes of my existence. Cassandra has a _nickname_ for one of the banes of my existence—although considering her extermination of Driscoll, I’m assuming the relationship is _not_ a positive one.

I look up at Daumier, and catch his beady eyes fixated on Cassandra.

Bad, meet worse.

By the time my gaze returns to Cassandra, she has a frown painted on her red lips, which match the ruby pendant around her neck, attached to a thin, gold chain. In an instant, her face transforms into a look of recognition. “You didn’t _know_? But you had all those files in my—in the suite…”

“Why would I be angry with you about Driscoll?” I repeat, fighting the urge to grab her by her arm and steer her out of Daumier’s line of vision. No, that would only bring more attention to her.

“Because of the treaty, Jack…?” She gives me a patronizing _oh, you poor dumb man_ look, as if I’ve forgotten the contract controlling my movement for the past seven years.

“Cassandra, is that the reason you tried to leave?” My voice is clear and even, preventing any of the hope I’m feeling from giving me away.

“Yes, that was the reason I _tried_ to leave. Ironically, the reason I _tried_ to leave and the reason that I _left_ are two very different things.”

I flinch, but it’s not as though I have an excuse, but obviously she’s running on a misunderstanding that I need to clear up _now._ “Cassandra, you didn’t break the terms. I should have been more clear, but I had no idea you’d killed someone and didn’t realize you were asking for yourself. Daumier cannot claim foul play for the death of someone he doesn’t claim to employ.”

Cassandra looks taken aback for a moment before a cold smile graces her beautiful mouth. “All the more reason for you to rethink your actions, huh?”

Another flinch. “Cassandra, I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

Her eyes narrow into slits and she hisses, “No, you _shouldn’t_ have.”

“I _wish_ I could take it back, but I can’t. Please, I promise never to do anything like that again—”

“Which part are you referring to? The attempted strangulation, the bindings, or the drugging?” Her voice is neutral, but I can still remember the look on her face when she’d been catatonic, and I knew I’d hurt her. _Badly_. I don’t bother telling her that I’d never actually attempted to strangle her. _Now is not the time, Jack._

“ _Any_ of it. Cassandra, I swear on my sister’s grave not to drug, confine, or lay a _hand_ on you ever again if you agree to return to The Acropolis.” I’m practically begging, although with the way Daumier is returning his glance to Cassandra every few minutes, I’m not ashamed of my desperation in this moment.

“And I’m just supposed to believe that? The same way I believed you when you said I could get my freedom back when I was better? Fool me once…” Cassandra has swiped a glass of champagne from a passing server and she takes a long sip.

“Then why _are_ you here?”

Her gaze softens for a moment before she looks away. Her eyes aren’t focused on anything, but I have a feeling she’s watching Daumier in her peripheral vision.

“You cleaned up my mess, Jack.” She returns her uninterested gaze to me. “Moreover, I know you chose to clean it up rather than having your goons kidnap me. Again. Plus, I owe you, and I figure that a gift basket just isn’t going to cut it.”

“You owe _me_?” Why is everything she says so confusing.

“Well, you owe me, too, considering the drugging and kidnapping,” she muses, taking another sip of the sparkling liquid that nearly matches the color of her dress. “But _this_ and _that_ are two entirely different things. Plus, I was in the area.”

“You were in the area?”

“Don’t sound so skeptical, Jack. You’ve cleaned up this mess, who’s to say you didn’t clean up my other mess as well?”

I stand straighter and she nods, confirming her suspicion.

“So obviously I had to personally deliver the message you’d so rudely intercepted.”

My eyes return to Daumier, and for the first time I notice an envelope crushed between his fat fist.

“Tell me you didn’t,” I breathe, not wanting to hear the answer, because I already know.

“Oh, I very much did.”

I groan, and the desire to throw her over my shoulder and lock her up in the tower is almost unbearable now. It was even worse when she could be targeted because of _me_ , but now she’s making a target of herself with _no_ resources and _no_ allies? Wait, maybe she _does_ have allies.

“Cassandra, do you know Ramo Moretti?” For the first time this week, I hope the answer is yes. I hope that she’s betrayed me and has an army standing behind her on this inexplicable quest she’s gone on to try to get herself killed the hard way. But with the fact that she didn’t know the details of the treaty and tried to leave rather than breach it doesn’t bode well.

“Jack, do you have a fever or something? Ramo is one of _your_ men. He’s the one who abducted me…?” Her eyes rake over my face, searching for signs of illness.

I sigh and shake my head. “Apparently not. But I can’t tell you more without your promise to return to The Acropolis. I’ve already taken too many security risks by allowing you to live after accessing our files.”

She nods understandingly, looking completely nonplussed by the announcement as she takes another draw from her champagne flute and looking around the room.

“I have conditions.” She doesn’t bother to look me in the eyes, which is good because I practically feel like a dog jumping up when his master returns I’m so eager to hear whatever will convince her to return to the safety of the hotel.

“Tell me.”

“I am going to kill Daumier. You cannot let it get in the way of The Parthenon. You _must_ let me leave if my actions put us at risk of war. I’ll try to be subtle but…” she gestures vaguely toward Daumier, who cannot seem to pull his eyes from her. I want to kill him myself, and more so right now, so we’re in accord for this condition. Plus, I really like that she included herself in The Pantheon. _Us._ I cannot believe how whipped I am by this enigmatic woman. “Second, you have to keep that vow you just made. No touching, confining, or _drugging_ me. If it happens once, I’m going do to you what I did to that fine suburban couple.” Her eyes are as cold as ice, and I can tell it’s not an empty threat. Instead of feeling fear, I feel more regret over what I’ve done to turn her into…this. “Third, I get _exclusive_ access to a room in the hotel. I want you to deprogram your keycard and the keycards of anyone else except _me_ for the room I stay in.”

I recall my first meeting with Cassandra, wired to those beeping machines and IVs with blood flowing into her veins. I’m clenching my jaw so hard I wonder if my teeth can break against each other. And then I see Daumier’s gaze locked onto her ass again and I immediately nod my assent.

Then Cassandra smiles at me. The same smile she’d given to Gregory Newman as she’d lured him to a quick death. The smile I know is fake but can’t help but respond to. “Fourth, you let me do to you what you did to me.”

_Is that all?_

“I agree with your conditions.” I pull out my phone and step around her, cutting off the line of vision between Daumier and Cassandra. I hold my phone to my ear, then bark out instructions to Mariella about the keycards. I text the instructions regarding a sedative to Dr. Mainlove. I turn back to Cassandra, and now I’m irate because she’s trying to look past me at Daumier. “It’s done. Taken care of by the time we get home.”

Cassandra lets out a relieved sigh and says, “Oh thank god, I spent the last of my money on this rock,” she gestures to the ruby at her neck “and this gown. I would have been screwed if you wanted to ice me.”

My own eyes narrow. “Have you been talking…to _Kelsey_?”

Cassandra’s hazel eyes widen and she gives an exaggerated shake of her head. “There’s no _way_ that she’s the one who told me where you would be tonight. She would _never_ tell me exactly which boutique had the dress she’d intended for me to wear to the event.”

I’m going to kill her.

Cassandra places her newly tanned, fine-boned hand to my chest and I think my heart stutters. Apparently she’s read my mind, because she pleads, “Please don’t kill her, Jack. She’s my first friend.”

I try not to feel hurt that she doesn’t consider me a friend, but this is just another pain I deserve after what I did to her last week. Kelsey will live.

“Now, when I vowed not to touch you, did that only mean _without_ your consent?” I offer her my hand as the host begins to announce the items up for auction.

An eyeroll, just for me. “Yes, Jack, I meant no touching _without_ my consent.”

She laces her fingers through mine and I guide her to our table.


	30. Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra gets back at Jack. In her own way.  
> (Jack's POV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooh boy this is a long'un

Throughout the remainder of the evening, I introduced Cassandra to Orla—who was wearing a very lovely flapper dress made almost entirely of silver beads, which further accentuated the wild red hair she’d somehow fashioned into a sleek plait which curled over one of her freckled shoulders, and who had been all too cheery despite the tension rolling off the rest of us each and every annual gathering—and Marcos Dominguez, who had donned a similar shade of silver, which brought out his own bronze skin.

To my satisfaction, Cassandra merely held out a hand to each and said politely, “Hello, I’m M, Jack’s companion for this evening,” and then engaged them in small talk until Lake had arrived and started going on about “M, I adore your dress, can I ask where you got it—” and I felt the rising urgency to drag Cassandra back to the hotel, pulling her from the fray with a, “It was so lovely to see you again.”

The trio had bid us farewell and began talking amongst themselves as I maneuvered Cassandra toward the exit. I made the mistake of glancing for Daumier again and found that his gaze was still laser focused on Cassandra’s every movement.

When we reach the limousine I waste no time getting a shockingly compliant Cassandra into the vehicle and I turn to her, “What on _earth_ did you say in that letter to have him gawking at you for three hours straight?”

Cassandra gives a half-shrug and her mien is as unemotional as ever, “I told him, ‘ _You’re next._ ’”

“Cassandra, does he _know_ you killed Driscoll?”

She snorts before responding, “He’d better.”

I try to take a deep breath to keep my thoughts clear. “Why would Daumier think you killed Driscoll?”

Another half-shrug, although this one seems a little more reluctant.

“Cassandra?”

She’s staring out the window now, and neon from storefront lights flash across her face as we pass them by. “Driscoll is dead. He knows it’s me. End of story.”

Not _end of story, Cassandra._

The most obvious—and most likely—guess is that Daumier had seen the reports of Driscoll _before_ Tav and Misha had managed to quash the investigation like a bug, but if it were so simple, I doubt Cassandra would be so secretive about it. Then again, when _isn’t_ she secretive? She barely talks about herself except to tell me if she likes or dislikes something. Nothing from her past, very few personal details.

This leads me to believe the _other_ possibility, although I’m not sure I want to stomach it right now—at least not right after Cassandra had finally returned.

The last time I’d felt so uninformed and powerless was right after Viktoria had died. None of us had seen it coming, and Misha refused to tell us any details until we’d figured it out from the news of the Cassani family vanishing from the city. We knew that the Cassanis hadn’t _really_ vanished, but even after Misha’d done away with them, he refused to talk about what had happened, and it had taken our own investigation—Luke, Kelsey and I—to determine what Viktoria’s actual fate had been. I still wish we’d never found out, and I’m all the more grateful to Misha for trying to spare us the details.

Now I feel that way once more, unsure who is facing Cassandra’s wrath and too concerned about the possible answers to ask why. I’m completely ignorant about her opponents, but Daumier is easy enough to understand. Daumier is an enemy to nearly everyone in the city aside from Zhao, and the only reason for that is because their empires are each built on the blood of unwilling victims. I don’t think there’s a soul in the city who would be sad if Daumier dropped dead, which is the primary reason that I’m not the least bit concerned about the fallout of her killing Daumier. He deserves it, the treaty is crumbling anyway, and Daumier’s demise is the only way to isolate Zhao and potentially his new weapons supplier, Malcom Harris. My only concern is how she plans to get through his army of mercenaries to off him. Unlike her last victims, Daumier doesn’t go anywhere without a half dozen armed bodyguards. And now he might surround himself even more, considering she’d hand-delivered him a letter with her intentions.

_What are you thinking, Cassandra?_

She appears utterly preoccupied watching the sights outside the limousine, and when we arrive she quietly accepts my hand as I lead her back into the hotel.

At the front door, Mariella introduces herself and hands Cassandra a golden keycard, then races away while barking some techno gibberish into her headset. When we enter the elevator, Cassandra hands out her hand and I pass her my own platinum keycard, having disabled the one she’d stolen from me last week when I’d given up on her returning on her own. She waves it over the elevator wall where the keycard reader is hidden and presses the button for her floor, which doesn’t light up. When she sees that my keycard no longer allows access to her room, her shoulders straighten at the same time I release a dismayed sigh.

_Oh well, it’s the least that I deserve._

Next, she flashes her own golden badge against the wall and presses the button again, which flashes a perfect ring of light as we head up to her suite. The higher we get, the more nervous I get that she’s actually seeking revenge on me—did I just offer to let her cuff and drug me to make it easier on her? Misha would have my neck if he heard about this.

Misha would probably have my neck for most of the decisions I seem to make around Cassandra. It’s like when she’s around my brain goes haywire, and when she’s not around my brain goes offline. No winning. I’m just glad that all of my thoughts unrelated to Cassandra still seem as efficient and precise as ever. Except for when I’m thinking about Cassandra. Or agreeing to an indeterminate debt to a very powerful Orla O’Shea for miniscule information about Cassandra. Or offering another undecided debt to a very powerful Lake Hargreaves for assistance in finding Cassandra.

_Fuck._

By the time the elevator doors slide apart to reveal Cassandra’s emerald suite, I’m _convinced_ she’s about to knife me. I wonder if she’ll kill me, or if she’s just going to make me suffer.

_Am I really going to go through with this?_

_Oh god, I think I am._

I’ve been stabbed before, can’t possibly be worse the second time around. Right?

“You should probably go _freshen up_.” She tells me, waving her arm in the direction of her bathroom. “So I can spare you the catheter.”

Catheter. That’s good, right? Catheters would indicate still being alive. Good. _Good._

I do as she says and when I emerge she instructs me to remove my shoes and jacket, leaving me in my pants, the cream-colored button-down, and my tie. I follow her directions and take myself to her bed.

Wait. Is she going to sleep next to me while I’m passed out? I’ll be sad to miss it.

Then a chill crawls up my spine as I remember that she’s the only one with access to this suite. What if she _is_ planning to kill me, and has just secured herself extra time to get out of the building _again?_ She’s already proven to be masterful at concealing herself from my people. Even Misha couldn’t track her down. If she kills me, how long would it take for Jade to be convinced to make a new key so they could find my body?

Even worse, if I’m right about her connection to Daumier, it’s looking more and more likely that someone _did_ plant her here for a reason. More than that, it looks like someone knows my own history well enough to exploit it through Cassandra. But Kelsey backed her up—told us her history was legitimate. So what was Cassandra’s role in all this?

Just as I’m about to hit the point of withdrawing my part of the agreement, I hear a quick clicking sound and realize that she’s cuffed my wrist to the metal headboard. Another click and she swiftly cuffs the other wrist as well.

My throat is bone dry now.

Cassandra slips the tie from around my neck, and I count myself thankful that she hasn’t tightened it into a noose. I’m starting to feel…kind of warm, actually. Is this panic? I think this is the entry stage to panic.

When the tie falls free of my clothes, she unbuttons the top button of my shirt and slides a pillow under my head, raising me up so I can see.

She glances beside me at the syringe on her nightstand, and she looks away, tapping a golden fingertip to her chin as she considers it. I kind of want her to get it over with, so if she does stab me it’ll be over without my knowing it, but to my dismay she slides a drawer open and slides the syringe into the drawer before sliding it closed.

“Rather than deprive you of _all_ your senses, I think it would be more… _pleasant—_ ” I try not to flinch at her questioning tone on the word _pleasant_ , “—if I deprive you of just _one_.”

She brings the tie across my eyes and pulls it tight behind my head, robbing me of all sight but the thin slivers of light between my cheekbones and the bottom edge of the soft fabric.

 _Please don’t let her have a knife._ Then I _do_ cringe, because of _course_ she has a knife. Even if she didn’t—which she does—this room has enough for each joint in my body.

“Aw, Jack, don’t be scared. All things considered, you didn’t physically _try_ to hurt me, so I’ll _try_ not to as well.”

I really don’t like the sarcasm dripping from her emphasis on the word _try._

Is it getting even warmer in here?

The room is silent for a moment and then I feel a weight across my legs. A person-sized weight. A _Cassandra_ -sized weight. The bed dips on either side of my hips and my breaths still. “Cassandra, are you… _straddling_ me?”

I hear her forlorn sigh from in front of me— _definitely_ straddling me—and my heartbeat quickens even faster than it did when I was certain she was about to stab me. “Alas, you took liberties with me while I was down for the count, I think it’s perfectly fine if I improvise a bit as well.”

_No way._

I try to remove the makeshift blindfold but my hands catch the metal cuffs and clink against the headboard.

“Cassandra, what are you doing?” I try to keep my tone even, but I didn’t adjust for the rasp in my voice.

“You see, when you handcuffed me, I tried to get free and hurt myself. After you so easily agreed to my request tonight, I realized I was going to have to come up with some other motivation for you to try to get free.” I can barely feel her nimble hands as they trail down my shirt, swiftly releasing button after button until I can feel the air of the room across my chest. When one of her hands slowly trails from my collar bone, down my chest, and across my stomach, a strangled sound comes from my throat, met with her musical laugh.

The first time she’s genuinely laughed for me and I don’t even get to see it? I’m regretting this deal almost more than when I thought she was going to skewer me and leave me to rot.

When her finger traces the line of my pants, the cuffs pull tight again. I’d assumed she wanted _payback_ for what I’d done to her, but if she thinks she’s teaching me a lesson I don’t think I’m getting out of it what she’d hoped.

I feel her warm breaths fluttering beside my ear when she leans down to whisper, “Don’t get too complacent, Jack. You’ll be regretting it soon enough.”

As if _that_ could deter me. I’m pretty sure if she took this blindfold off I’d be completely and incandescently joyous right now. Especially considering I’ve realized that her dress hadn’t exactly been made for straddling. Either she’s hiked that dress up to her hips, or that second of silence before I’d felt her weight had been spent dropping the dress to the floor. _Please be the latter, but I swear I’m not picky._

When I feel her nip my ear with her teeth, my ability to breathe disappears again, only to resume at a staccato vengeance when I feel her fingers brush against the button of my trousers, only for a moment before the button is released and her hands slowly slide back up my torso until her hands cover my shoulders.

“Am I dreaming right now?” My voice is rougher, and I’ve completely abandoned any effort to keep my words even. When Cassandra’s laughter again—the _second_ time I won’t get to see—I renew my resistance against the handcuffs. I resolve to replace the headboard with soft, breakable wood after I get free.

I hear something set down on the nightstand and feel her hair softly brush against my chest, which causes me to tense. _She’s undone her hair._

Then I frown, because her hair no longer smells like I’ve become accustomed to. Now it smells like rainwater instead of flowers. “Your hair smells…different.”

“Mmm?” She rolls her hips over my legs, just below the part of my body where I’d _prefer_ for her to be rolling her hips. Still, it draws a hiss from me and another yank on the cuffs. “Well, most department stores don’t carry forty-dollar bottles of shampoo, Jack.” She pauses for a moment before adding, “But I can go shower if you’d prefer that.”

I clench my jaw, because I don’t want her to do that, and I know she knows I don’t want her to either, but if I answer I’m worried she might do the opposite just to torment me, which is evidently her goal this evening. Reluctantly, I tell her, “I don’t mind the scent of rain.”

Her hair is swept off my chest and I hear her sniffing it. When it brushes against my chest again I hear her say, “I can’t believe you can smell that. I can’t smell anything.”

She moves her hips back down my legs and I think for a second that I was right—that she’s going to go take a shower while I wait here all trussed up and blindfolded—but then I feel her breath on my stomach and the breath escapes me as the handcuffs clink against the headboard again. Her breath is getting warmer and warmer and I realize she’s getting closer only a moment before her soft lips finally brush against my skin, over a raised scar slashing my side.

Now I’m working on keeping my breathing measured as her lips lightly trace up and across my chest until she reaches my collar. Her own breaths sound a little shallow, and I don’t think she’s noticed that her hips have moved forward again, almost to where I need them to be. That, or she has realized and that’s what made her breaths so shallow. Either way, I’m not going to bring her attention to either.

Without the slightest warning, her teeth bite onto the flesh curving between my neck and shoulder and a flash of pain shoots through me, but by the time I’ve registered what’s happened, her teeth are gone and her weight has shifted back.

“Admiring your work?” I turn my head to the side so she can better see for herself what is undoubtedly going to be an obvious mark. Her fingers tug gently at the collar of my shirt and I’m surprised that she was _actually_ admiring her work.

“I think you should keep that on you everywhere you go,” her voice is practically a purr and I’m speechless on the realization that _she_ liked it almost as shocked as I am that _I_ liked it, which is apparent by the certain appendage attempting to alert her how close her hips are to being _perfectly_ lined up.

She wasn’t joking about only getting started, because when she then moves on to dragging her golden nails down and around my torso in unpredictable and increasingly lower movements my own breathing shallows and I wonder what all she’s going to be doing to me before she releases me. I don’t think I could handle an hour of this, let alone how long she’d been sedated and later asleep.

When she adds her mouth to the torturous movements of her hands, kissing, nipping and sucking my skin until I feel like every inch of my skin is an erogenous zone, I begin to wonder if it’s possible to come in my pants at my age. When she rolls her hips again, this time directly over my erection, I become certain that it’s possible. From the groan that escaped me, I’m pretty sure she can tell because she pulls away, leaving me feeling flushed despite the cool air clinging to each spot on my chest that she’d licked or sucked.

“I thought you were mad at me.” My voice is practically shaking. My wrists are more than a little raw by now, and if it weren’t for the blindfold and my stupidly repetitive efforts to remove it I might completely forget that they’re there.

“I was. I _am_. And this is how I’m taking it out on you.”

“Remind me to get you mad at me more often.” I groan when she digs the tips of her nails into my chest and drags them down, stopping just before she eviscerates my poor, exposed nipples.

“I had no idea you’d get such enjoyment out of it or I’d have brought live scorpions to the bed instead.” She replies curtly, but I can hear her shallow breaths as she rolls her hips again, this time pressing her nails into my sides as leverage.

“Sure.” I try to sound suave, but my breaths are choppy as well, and I’m praying desperately not to come in my pants for the first time she’s willingly crawled into bed with me. “That’s why you’re panting while riding me.”

She lets out a single laugh and responds, “You’re one to talk.”

_Touché._

I decide to settle in with the cuffs—if she wants my wrists all bloodied, who am I to deny her—and use them as leverage to rock my hips against her on her next go around. She lets out a surprised gasp which quickly devolves into a moan. A _moan_. I don’t get to see her first moan, either? This is some _bullshit._

“Cassandra, take the tie off my eyes.”

Still breathy, she stills her movement and asks, “Why?”

“I want to see you.” I tell her, and when she moves again—ignoring my request—I let out another strangled sound, battling with the handcuffs for the dozenth time tonight. “Please, Cassandra?”

She stills again, and then murmurs, “Oh, I think I like _that._ Do it again.”

“Do what?”

“Beg me.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I grit out, but then she shifts her weight to one side, as if she’s about to get off of me, and I immediately correct my ways. “ _Please_ remove the blindfold, Cassandra.”

She settles her weight atop me again but sits far enough back that my hips no longer meet hers. I release a frustrated growl and try again, “Cassandra, please take off the blindfold. I’m _begging_ you.”

That perfect laughter rings through the room again and I grind my teeth together while I resume my efforts to keep myself from reliving my most embarrassing wet-dream years. She’s a goddamn siren when she says, “You’d beg even more if you knew what I was wearing. Or…what I’m not.”

She laughs again when the handcuffs meet the metal headboard and I curse whoever it was who had selected the furniture. Was it me? I hope it wasn’t me. I bet it was, though.

“Cassandra, _please._ What would it take for me to get you to remove this blindfold?” I plead, and she pauses with her mouth only millimeters from one of my nipples.

“Jack the Negotiator,” she coos, scraping her teeth softly against my flesh, making me involuntarily pull against the handcuffs. “If only you had tried to keep some of your negotiating power earlier.” She sighs nostalgically, undoubtedly remembering the same conversation I was currently cursing, during which I’d agreed to this treatment.

I’m about to beg again—beg all night if she wants me to—when I feel the knot behind my head loosen before the tie slips off my face. I blink at the light for a moment before I can even attempt to take in the sight in front of me.

“I knew it. You _are_ trying to kill me,” I breathe, my eyes locked shamelessly on her breasts, which are half spilling out of the lacey green bodice of her babydoll and adorned with that ruby necklace I'd clearly taken for granted earlier. I want to move my eyes down to take the rest of her in, and I’m vaguely aware that her entire legs are bared up to the lace panties under that sheer negligee fabric trailing from her ribs to her hips, but my eyes refuse to leave her chest, which is rising and falling rapidly. She’s breathing hard. So am I. I manage to tear my face away from her perfect breasts and find myself meeting her eyes. Her pupils are so dilated that only the green remains, and it matches her lingerie with an uncanny effect that makes my heart pound twice as loud as it was before. I let out a choked laugh and tell her, “I’m really glad you handcuffed me, actually. I don’t think if I’d seen you like this that I’d be able to keep the other part of my vows to you.”

Her pink lips slide into a predatory grin. “After seeing you covered in my marks, I’m sure I would have been more than consenting for the rest.”

I groan again, pulling at the handcuffs. “Please take off the handcuffs, Cassandra.”

She grips my jaw and pulls me to look at her again. No, not to look, she’s leaning closer. Closer. I rattle the cuffs against the headboard again when her lips press to mine, and when I grunt my frustration she uses the opportunity to slide her hot little tongue between my lips, lapping against my own tongue while her body rocks against mine.

If I think about that outfit, I’m going to come. _Don’t think about what she’s wearing. Don’t think about it. Don’t think._

Then Cassandra breaks away and lets out a little cry, her body beginning to tremble against mine. I’m chanting _don’t think, don’t think, don’t think_ over and over in my head when I realize that she’s coming as her body shudders again and again over my own. When she finally recovers, her cheeks have turned a lovely shade of pink as she scrambles with a key, which she uses to unlock my hand closest to the edge of the bed. When I wait for her to release the other one, she gives me a heavy-lidded look that’s almost enough to bring me over the edge and whispers, “I’m not going to sedate you, but I’m not just going to let you leave while I sleep, either. Only one of us makes that mistake.”

She laughs again at my glower, and the humor apparent on her face makes me wonder how Gregory Newman was ever such a fool to believe that her earlier smiles had been genuine. The difference was night and day. Her whole face lights up when she laughs, and her smile cuts straight through the heart. It’s so sweet that I forget about how terrible the ache in my testicles is about to be for the next few hours. Rather than focusing on the pain blossoming in my nether regions, I’m already wondering how I can get her to laugh again, or forever, whichever she’s most amenable to.

She interrupts my thoughts again as she pulls herself off me and moves to the light switch, my eyes glued on her pert ass and swaying hips the entire way. When the lights are extinguished and the only light is from the window to the city below, she returns to me, sliding into the bed beside me, lying her head on my shoulder with the arm still attached to the headboard. She drapes a leg across mine and I try not to focus on the urgency demanded by my raging erection.

_Down, boy._

She left me one free arm, but I’m fairly certain it wasn’t left free so I could get myself off. Besides, I’d already received a much better punishment than I’d anticipated for the evening, so instead I use my freed arm to pull her body against mine and I watch her face in the low light as she slips quickly into a deep slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 09/14/20 HIATUS: I kinda feel like I haven't really been doing my original idea for this story justice so I'm going to take a hiatus. I hope I left y'all on kinda a good note, but I really wanna work on my writing before I come back to this story. I may even re-write some of the posted chapters (but the plot will remain the same, so if you've read up to this point there will be no need to go read the chapters again). I don't know how long this hiatus will be, but I hope you find many wonderful stories to keep you preoccupied in the meantime.


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